Black Sun Chronicles: Raging Wind and Cold Steel
by Kuranzyan Blightwalker
Summary: Eight years since his exile, he never expected to lay eyes on his home again. "Hi, Saru-Jii-san. It's nice to meet you again. Courtesy demands I'd say the same to him, but I'm not that particularly fond of parasites, particularly the necrophiliac kinds."
1. Introducing, Shiki Tatsumaki!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Naruto.

Summary: They chased him out of the village at the age of seven. Eight years later, he's back, and he's not in a friendly mood. Betrayal is nothing short of terrifying when you have no idea what is going on in the first place. Dark!Smart!Strong!Naruto. NarutoXFemHakuXFemKyuubi.

A first person perspective narration of Naruto, at the age of 15 as he forms plans to 're'-infiltrate Konoha on a hell-bent drive to reclaim his one true home and smoothen his and others' misfortunes in life straight again.

* * *

People say that rules exist for a reason.

They also say rules are meant to be broken.

I disagree with both of those perspectives.

Sometimes there's a rule that exists without any reason whatsoever, and it isn't meant to be broken at all.

I am fifteen years old now, give or take a few days.

Despite the last eight years of time spent in exile, I still remember all of it.

_My past_.

_The pain_.

_The solitude_.

_The hate_.

_Those damned cold, ruthless, unforgiving eyes_.

Damn Konohagakure no Sato.

No, that's not right.

The village itself has done nothing to me.

It was the damned men and women of the village council that hated me and my guts.

The villagers of Konoha that never once tried to look past their baseless hate.

I hate them.

Especially the manipulative crippled devil called Shimura Danzō.

The commander of the underground ANBU '_Foundation_'.

Sneaky bastard.

The elders who worship the ground he walks on.

As if he's a god in human form.

The civilian side of the village council who bow to his every whim as if it is the word of a god.

Pathetic, snivelling, wretched cowards.

Constantly reprimanding of I supposedly '_lacking respect_' of my elders when they themselves gave none back whatsoever.

_Hypocrites_.

Respect is to be earned, not given.

A fundamental rule of society.

Their constant nattering on that '_the demon brat_' should find some sort of foul cesspit to live in.

The further away from normal people, the better, for his own safety.

No thanks to you.

Where in _Rikudō Sennin's legacy_ is the logic in all of that?

They simply decided that they didn't want me hanging around their fungus brains any longer.

Too much trouble for them to deal with, I guess.

I can understand the point though.

An unstable _Jinchuuriki_ is far more of a liability than the next guy.

It doesn't excuse their ignorance in sending away the greatest military trump card they could have.

It's the worst thing they could've done, next to overthrowing the Hokage and disarming the village completely over night.

Their skulls are filled with rotten eggs.

They do not even begin to understand that their constant '_for the better of Konoha_' infighting will only lead to ruin and decay.

The whole lot of them is simply pathetic.

At least the Old Man Hokage knew me.

Who I really was.

What I truly wanted.

What I truly felt.

He looked past the damn whiskers on my face.

He saw past the cheerfully grinning mask.

He recognized the hurt I was going through.

Not that he could actually have made a difference.

There's only so much one man can do, even if that man is the Hokage.

It wasn't within his powers to mitigate most of the damage when the majority of the flock outweighs the head.

After all, monkey sees, monkey does.

Especially when one of the monkeys is more stupid than its fellows.

Most of the time they were either drunk or had some sort of other '_excuse_'.

Sparing themselves from quite a few times of the greater torment they would have hanging over their heads.

Ninjas only made some of those '_Fox-brat hunts_' far worse than they should've been.

Life isn't fair.

I know that now.

Yet I'm not going to bitch about it.

It's not going to help me.

I don't hate Konohagakure no Sato.

In fact, I love the village.

The ideals and the dream of a safe haven for everyone that was unfortunately left unfulfilled by the Shodai Hokage.

_The Will of Fire_.

Because of Shodai's noble goals, even if they were almost a hundred years old, I can't bring myself to hate the village.

I just hate its citizens instead.

They perverted the Shodai Hokage's noble views of prosperity, peace and tranquillity into something that can only be described as a vile concoction of ignorance, greed, xenophobia, paranoia, and lust for power.

In other words, they did a complete one-eighty on the village founder's legacy.

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be for the best that I simply wipe the entirety of Konohagakure no Sato off of the very face of the Elemental Countries.

It's become nothing but a blemish on the land, a blight that infects otherwise healthy soil.

I dismiss that train of thought often, though.

It's hardly ever that simple.

I need to cut off the infection at its root.

Besides, not all of them were that bad.

The Inuzuka clan was nice despite their rough way of showing affection.

I believe it to be a result of the pack-based environment they live in.

I think.

The members of the Akimichi clan were polite and respectful to about just anyone to a fault.

Unless you called one of them a fatso.

Not even a woman scorned could match up to that type of carnage.

The Nara's were constantly throwing fits of "troublesome" this and "troublesome" that throughout the council meetings.

A bit of levity in otherwise utterly boring afternoons.

Sometimes I was forced to attend one such meeting by the civilian side, '_for my benefit_' as they put it, when in actuality they were just looking for the equivalent of a punching bag.

Not that they would even dare touch me with the Hokage breathing down their necks.

It would've been a one way ticket to hell if they had.

The Yamanaka clan head generally looked past the superficial grins I wore on my face.

He probably had experience in looking past such superfluous masks.

Likely because of their clan's mind-based jutsu and everything.

The Aburame clan leader was rather distant in his dealings with me.

Then again, he acted like that to just about everyone else too.

I've seen bugs with more emotional attachment than most members of the Aburame clan.

Some of the Jōnin I met on a regular basis in the past were rather friendly too.

This purple-haired, cheerful and rather carelessly dressed lady who at first glance looks really kind but can put on a spine-chilling scowl on her face at the drop of a hat was usually warm and nice to me.

Ignoring the frequent times she licked my blood, or attempted to, she was mostly just that.

Kind and easygoing.

Probably because she felt just as lonely as I did most of the time.

She really loved dango, something I can relate to.

After all, I was pretty much the same as her when it came to ramen.

A pastime that unfortunately met its demise during the first year of my exile, when I would be forced to gather my own foods from nature itself.

There was also this rather huge and intimidating man called _Ibiki_ or something.

He was much like the Inuzuka, rather blunt and rough on the edges.

I know for a fact that he was rather fond of me and some of the pranks I sometimes pulled.

He said that they were '_good incentive and a great indicator of planning and stealth skills. Besides, they're worthy of a good laugh every once in a while_.'

For all their support did, in the end, it wasn't enough to protect me.

The civilian side of the council had gone behind the Hokage and the shinobi side's backs and had me exiled from Konoha.

That day was the worst one in my life, and I've had plenty of bad ones.

I was chased out of the village by an angry and drunk mob of villagers.

The Old Man Hokage could do naught but watch in horror from the sidelines.

I ran with my life on the line.

I saw his face that day.

An emotionless mask, one unlike any I've ever seen in my life was on his face.

As if his entire body had been turned into a statue over the course of naught but a second.

His gaze was unnaturally empty, almost ancient, completely contradicting the image of the kind old man I had come to know and admire.

He was every bit the village commander.

_Steadfast_.

_Unwavering_.

_Unyielding_.

A 'God' amongst shinobi indeed.

The image was so unrefined, so potent; it had me thinking that maybe he did not care about me after all.

It served to even unnerve the _Kyuubi_ sealed in my gut, as I would learn years later.

At first glance I thought that he had been the instigator of the whole thing because the sight was simply too terrible to behold.

When a lone tear escaped his stony mask, I realized that he was desperately trying to hold back his guilt, regrets and sorrow.

For me.

For my plight.

I'd like to hope that a lot of people had made their peace with the _Shinigami_ that day.

I wish for nothing less but everything they have, including their lives, taken from them.

It is the only thing I will accept as the cost for their stupidity of banishing the third _Kyuubi Jinchuuriki _from the only place he has ever known and considered his home.

The Old Man's failure has finally opened my eyes.

The title of Hokage interests me no longer.

It obviously is not the thing I have been looking for.

The prestige of the position is severely overrated.

As a result of being chased out of Konoha, I had to learn to take care of myself.

All by my own, I hunted.

All by my own, I killed.

I simply _vanished_ from the very face of the earth whenever one of those pesky bounty hunters showed up.

For eight years I wandered the world.

Visiting places both mundanely common and extraordinarily exotic.

Familiar and unfamiliar sceneries were graced by my presence.

I was no longer hindered by the oppressive ignorance and the hate of the village I hailed from.

I could finally begin to grow at a pace that was no longer dictated to me by others.

I now had free reign.

It didn't take long before I had created at least three personal jutsu and learned many dozens more.

I tempered my body under sheer pressure, scalding heats and numbing colds.

I witnessed most of the hells and sins known to man.

I managed to overcome some of them in spectacular fashion.

Others not so much, to my lingering regret.

I would seek some measure of comfort in the presence of the _Kyuubi_.

I received what I asked for, but it was far from an ideal parent-child relationship.

Still, she would be there to provide comfort.

A shoulder to cry on if I had need for it.

I would be taught by experts in their arts.

Taijutsu.

Kenjutsu.

Various other professions.

Before long, I went on to improve on their teachings by myself.

Crafting seals was but one of them.

Not even one week after being exiled, I was already forced to sacrifice part of my worldly self by cutting off my own arm a few centimetres below my shoulder because of a rather overzealous snake attack.

That particular critter had been part of a sub-species that was extremely rare and valuable.

The reason for that was its uncharacteristically potent venom.

Even the slightest trace could quickly kill off otherwise healthy flesh and cause it to rot away in a very painful, smelly and unbearably disgusting manner.

A perfect, painful and immeasurably cruel torture and killing tool.

It was without question that the wretched serpent didn't live long enough to see another sunset.

I stomped its head to mush without second thoughts.

My first kill, and a rather messy one at that.

Such a shame that I hadn't been thinking clearly at the time.

It would have been a useful instrument if it had been kept alive and under wraps.

Alas, it was not to be.

I suppose I should be thankful that it didn't fall in the hands of the wrong person.

Who knows just what sorts of horror could take place if it had?

I still shudder at the thought of it.

Years had already passed before I had any means of restoring my mobility to full efficiency, but once the basic blueprints of the prosthetic arm which I now harness were finalised, the rest followed soon after.

Eight years have passed since the day that Uzumaki Naruto died as a result of the actions of the villagers of Konoha.

I have contracted two 'monikers' under which I operate these days.

The first: '_Blood Rain_'.

I received this one when I demolished several outlying military bases, extensions of both Iwagakure's and Kusagakure's garrisons in Tsuchi no Kuni, in a most unique fashion.

I literally made the skies weep blood during my brief visits to Tsuchi no Kuni.

Since Kusagakure is under a peace treaty with Kumogakure, I'm enlisted in the bingo books as '_Blood Rain_' there as well.

The second: '_Black Sun_'.

I received this one when I killed nearly two thirds of Kirigakure's ANBU and forced the Yondaime Mizukage to the hospital for several weeks. The bastard had refused to pay me after I had completed a high profile assassination assignment.

I do my disgusting, filthy work, and this lame jackass decided he was better off keeping the money to himself, somehow having come to the conclusion that if I were killed, there'd be no complaints.

How very, very _wrong_ he was.

He found that out when I calmly crushed the bones in all of his extremities before slowly moving on to the bigger body parts. Consider me a sadistic son of a bitch, but I found his agonized screams to be the most beautiful thing I ever heard.

* * *

I can see the village gates in front of me.

I'm back, after eight long years.

It's time to take my revenge on those who have wronged me.

I involuntarily clutch the part of my prosthetic arm where flesh ends and metal begins in anticipation.

I'm _home_, for the first time since eight years.

With eight years of intense training that would put most Kages to bitter shame under my belt, I am positive that my abilities prove adequate enough to deal with the entire security force of the supposedly most powerful Hidden Village amongst the Elemental Nations.

The time where I crashed that '_party_' in Kirigakure no Sato is a reasonable indicator of my knack for disrupting the infrastructure of a Hidden Village completely, I believe.

I am Tatsumaki Shiki, a fifteen year old ninja trainee who aspires to be Hokage through any and all available means.

A mere outward guise serving to belie my primary interests.

A necessary course of action, in order to complete my second goal in life, which would be the execution of each and every bastard that had dared to raise their hand to harm Uzumaki Naruto in the past.

My main goal is, of course, claiming my rightful place in Konohagakure no Sato as one of the most powerful shinobi in service of the Hokage and Hi no Kuni the world will ever see.

I will surpass my father.

The Yondaime Hokage.

_Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou_.

Konohagakure no Sato better ready themselves.

The atrocities of the past are coming back to haunt them.

The horrible life and demise of Uzumaki Naruto will be brought to light.

Justice will be done.

Tatsumaki Shiki shall be the hand which brings it.

No one is able to stop the sun from being blotted black.

No one will be able to stop the skies from crying blood.

Judgment is coming for them.

They're going to pay for what they did.

And after I'm through with it, I expect another moniker to be added to the bingo book.

'_Konoha no Shinigami_.'

The Reaper amongst the Leaves.

* * *

A/N:

An updated and improved introduction. It should give a bit more insight into Naruto's character, how he diverts from the way he is portrayed in canon. I've changed the pairing, because it's really not my forte to write a harem story. There are people who can and do a spectacularly good job of it, but I'm just not cut out for that sort of thing. I've tried.


	2. Being cute and innocent now

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Naruto. Things are falling into place rapidly now. Zabuza will make his first appearance in the next chapter as will the Battle on the Bridge. Enjoy reading chapter two!

* * *

Thank Kami I was able to graduate from the Academy after 'just' two months of 'official' training. The Kyuubi sealed within me actually went and succeeded into getting me betting on how long I'd be able to keep my cool in there as I went through days of lectures and lectures and boring history and more lectures. If I'd win she would have to live with any and all idiotic demands from me without complaint, and if she'd win I'd give her partial freedom through the use of a special type of Bunshin the two of us had developed during my exile. The damn Fox actually won from me that time. Now that I think about it, it's probably for the best that I lost on her. If I hadn't, she'd probably be nuttier than Shukaku the Ichibi Tanuki on a good day at this point.

On an unrelated note, I recall this really timid girl with bluish hair and unnatural white eyes. I vaguely remember that it was a result of a special bloodline limit called the White Eye or something, meaning that it's genetic, and that means that there's a whole clan of white-eyes out there. Just my luck, she seems to be too shy to ask me anything face-to-face, it's like her head takes on a permanent pepper red colour every time we meet, and she always faints in this really exaggerated way when I'm particularly close to her in the physical sense.

Now where was I? Ah yes, I graduated from the Academy and was assigned a Jounin-sensei and 'captain' during my time as Genin. The Gray-headed Scarecrow actually managed to end up coming three hours late at the first team meeting and barely managed to utter some poorly made up excuse before he got himself a fist thrown in his face, property of an extremely violent and frenzied _thing_ named after the poetic cherry blossom. The name is an insult to an otherwise beautiful work of nature. Heck, even the dumbest elephant has more grace and common sense than the pink haired-malnourished baka. On top of that, she has given the word bipolar a whole new meaning in just three minutes flat since I first met her, and I mean that quite literally.

The Uchiha seems about the only one in the team that can be taken serious so far. The only thing that bothers me about him is his power-hungry mindset and blatant lack of compassion for other human beings. I don't even want to think about what in the nine hells happened to him, I probably can't even relate to whatever personal demons he had to fight in order to live. By no means do I feel sorry for him though. Whatever that had made the Last Uchiha this way must've had shell-shocked the Council for months. The part that threw me away like a used piece of chewing gum, that is. In other words, I don't give a rat's ass about what transpired back then.

Enough about my teammates. After Baka-shi expected us to give some marginal description of ourselves while giving his 'subordinates' zilch info of himself, the emo king actually manages to talk long enough to make sense for once! Next thing you know he actually kills himself for being a disgrace to humankind. The world is better off without him.

Pinky only did one thing throughout her description of herself. Squealing in rapture in my mind is far less of an annoyance. _It_ managed to irk me enough to make me actually want to ram my entire prosthetic metal arm down her throat to make the bothersome noise go away. Buzzing mosquito's got nothing on her, that's for sure. They're also a lot less vain and shallow.

Alright, some more details about myself. I am going to repeat what I told them, so pay attention for a bit and bear with me, please. "_My current name is Shiki Tatsumaki. Don't even bother to ask me about the 'current' because it's none of your damn business and I sure as hell am not going to answer. I've got a few things I enjoy doing in my spare time, and I hate pretty much everything else that's not on my list of likes. My dream is… to become Hokage I guess, and to find one or more official records about a particular incident here in Konoha that took place a couple of years ago. Again, don't bother fishing for more details, because you sure as hell won't get them from me._"

Baka-shi told us to skip breakfast the next morning because he apparently thought we wouldn't be able to handle whatever he was planning for us. I've seen more than enough blood, gore and very explicit adult stuff when I was still a preteen, partly thanks to Kyuubi. I could care less whether or not Baka-shi would fight us all-out, and I know that the Uchiha would do the same. Both of us would be able to hold our own against the Scarecrow without taking too much damage. Pinky was a different story, but she's not worth the effort to spend any quality time with unless she'd undergo a serious priority shift, and the Uchiha was too self-centred to bother anyway. Besides, I think I shouldn't spent too much time around anyone in case I would accidently slip up by giving away something that shouldn't be given away and screw the plans I've made up big time.

The following morning I went through my usual routine of training a few hours while having breakfast during a short break. After I finished up my training session and took a quick shower and changed into another set of clothes, I figured that Baka-shi would likely show up a few hours later than the moment he had told us to meet, so I decided to take advantage of the tardiness of the man and try and kill some time with Kyuubi as I had hardly anything better to do.

"_Can you think of something to kill some time? I'm really bored right now._"

"_**How about you come in here and we can always…**_" Okay, that was something I could expect from her, but that doesn't mean I have to put up with the antics she puts up. I quickly left my mindscape before she could see my face and shuddered in mild horror. Damned vixen.

"_**Hey, you're no fun at all! You always leave me here all alone and aroused and everything!**_" She huffed indignantly in the back of my mind. "_**You're really mean; you were the one to ask, not the other way around!**_"

"_Kami, can't you just pick something else to do rather than humiliate me with stuff like that?"_ I retorted, flaring an insane amount of killing intent towards her, but it wasn't nearly enough to intimidate her in the slightest. "_We've been stuck with each other for about fifteen years now; you should how I'd think about that kind of thing by now. I thought I told you I wasn't interested in _that_ yet!_"

"_**Prick!**_"

"_Wench!_"

"_**Git!**_"

"_Slut!_"

As soon as I said that I knew I'd hit a nerve. Even though she'd always put on that act, technically she was just as much a 'virgin' as I was, though our ages differed by hundreds, if not thousands of years. Even though she was trying to hide it as much as possible, I could hardly not ignore her sudden silence and the emotional pain she was radiating right now. I walked through the gigantic gates inside the sewer-like structure in an attempt to reconcile with her, as she was probably stuck with me the rest of our lives. She couldn't exactly hide the minute amounts of kitsune youki she constantly emitted while she inhabited one of my shadow clones, much less could she hide the tails and the unique eyes she possessed, as it was impossible for her to use a Henge to hide some of her more... 'noticeable features' for some unknown reason. Especially when nobody actually knew who Shiki really was, but then again, she could always play the card that Naruto and Kyuubi had fused into some sort of hybrid, with Naruto being the mental aspect and Kyuubi the physical, and that 'I' was completely unrelated to the two of them. On second thought, the whole idea was utter rubbish. It would be way too much of a drag to be able to fully explain all the details on the fly anyway. Not to mention the various gaps in reasoning that would be more than likely addressed by Old Man Hokage and the Council.

A few months had gone by since the second Genin test, which we all passed after Baka-shi gave a long rant about teamwork being the most important thing to a shinobi and me and the Uchiha did what we thought he'd want us to do; feed Pinky while she was tied to a log post and she couldn't do much about her growling stomach herself. Anyway, not much interesting happened since us becoming full-fledged genin, except for the umpteenth time we had managed to bring the same bloody runaway cat back to one of the Fire Lord's wives. Even though I'm not exactly a fan of cats, in particular this one, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor creature as it was crushed in a vicious bear-hug. Kyuubi was snickering at the unfortunate cat in the back in my mind.

I had realized after doing quite a few D-ranked missions that I would likely end up doing those over-glorified chores with my team for at least the rest of the year, and I honestly couldn't take that so I threw in a small tantrum after pretending to snap under the public guise of a complete dunce. It worked, and we were on our merry way towards the Wave Country on a mission to protect some bridge builder as he travelled to his hometown a few hours later. Halfway during the trip towards Tazuna's hometown we ran into some mid to high-level chuunin Kirigakure missing-nins called the Demon Brothers. Needless to say after Baka-shi apparently got himself killed, I managed to bash in the brains of one of the duo after a short scuffle with my metal arm and was about to do the same to finish the other one when Baka-shi popped up out of nowhere hitting said guy with a lariat type of thing, actually having the freaking nerve to be stealing one of my kills without any good reason, the ass. I'm not sure what that weird move he pulled is supposed to be called. Anyway, because of those two nins coming out of nowhere, the bridge builder was forced to reveal why he requested a C-rank instead of an A-rank like any normal non-shinobi should've done, after we'd threathened to abandon him to a certain death.

After a short and brief explanation about what was going on in Wave Country at the moment, we agreed to see this mission through to the end, because we would hardly be any better than that Gato guy if we'd just run back to Konoha without doing anything to help them, and I had this really queasy feeling that this was where the proverbial shit would really hit the fan.

* * *

A/N:

You can see that Naruto has very little respect for his teammates in this fic, with the sole exception of Sasuke, in who he recognizes a fellow 'survivor' of sorts even though he remains wary of the Uchiha's lust for power and poorly hidden disregard for the well-being of others. While Naruto isn't exactly mister most compassionate himself, he draws the line at involving anyone who shouldn't be involved in the first place. He does remember those who had been nice to him in the past and he will reward them in kind.

Naruto's statistics in this fic at this point are the following:  
Taijutsu 350/500  
Ninjutsu 350/500  
Genjutsu 100/500  
Fuinjutsu 300/500  
Chakra control 350/500  
Kenjutsu 350/500  
Stealth 450/500

On top of all that he is a highly skilled engineer and chemist, which allowed him to alter and/or hide certain physical aspects about himself like his blonde hair and his whisker marks and create objects like colored contact lenses with several technical additions like a recording device and a "vision browser" consisting of heat vision, infrared and the best one he could integrate, chakra vision (it simply allows one to see chakra and that's it, no tenketsu or whatever as those are too minute to pick up without a highly trained Byakugan anyway), several new types of grenades and explosives, and the most prominent of all is his metal arm, which has various slots for the safekeeping of important things like weapon scrolls and a few extra kunai or shuriken. It also houses a highly durable 15 inch sword normally hidden in the lower arm, but it can be brought out with a simple flick of his wrist. The most nifty trick about the arm however, is that it is tuned in to his chakra signature, granting a highly effective defense against people like Sasuke and Orochimaru who would steal it and abuse it for their own ends.


	3. Revealing a tip of the veil

Yep, my gut feeling preceded the blade. Literally, because shortly after I had scared a snow-white rabbit shitless, some really large object came whizzing at me, Tazuna and my teammates, only to end up getting embedded pretty deep in a tree and stepped on by another Missing nin, this time of Jounin rank, that much was clear. Still, I had to play the role of the dunce, so I grabbed a kunai out of my holster and prepared to rush into what would've unquestionably been my doom if I actually were stupid, only to have Scarecrow telling me to stay back and let him handle things.

If he would enter the fray I probably could keep up the guise of a complete moron a little longer. Maybe he wasn't too hopeless of a ninja after all. On second thought, burn that. If he couldn't assess the situation properly like he did back with those two Chuunin missing nins, he wouldn't be worth much. Ah well, I don't give a damn anyway. Well that's interesting. The guy has a sharingan, probably implanted from the looks of it, which means he can use it only under some rather inconvenient circumstances, and normally it gives one hell of a kick back to you if used for extensive periods of time.

I probably shouldn't gloat about this, but it was damn funny to see Baka-shi screw up completely and get trapped in some suiton entrapment technique. I mean, how hard can it be to put two and two together and realize you're fighting a Kirigakure jounin-level missing nin, not to mention one of the Seven Swordsmen, and to basically run unprotected into the most likely environmental element, said thing being water by the way, that undoubtedly will be used against you?

Apparently even Konoha jounin are that stupid, or simply lack common sense. No offense to you Old Man Hokage, but seriously, I'm a fifteen year old Genin 'punk' and even I know better than to rush into obvious disadvantages like that. Whoa, some Mizubunshin came really close in beheading me before I destroyed it with a glancing blow to the throat. I should pay more attention if I actually want to see my plans pay off. Uchiha and Pinky are wetting themselves in sheer terror at the moment, so I guess I can't expect anything from them at all. That good-for-nothing bridge builder passed out from the killing intent the Demon of the Hidden Mist was flinging in our general direction, but that was to be expected as well, since he wasn't a shinobi and all.

Ah well, time for me to take the spotlight, otherwise we all would end up getting royally screwed in the ass, and even though I didn't give a damn about whatever happened to Scarecrow, Pinky and Uchiha, I needed money and the only way to get that was through missions, and right now the only one that was available to me was the escort of Tazuna to Wave. Zabuza wanted to kill our client, and we were in his way. Besides, I doubt that Zabuza would let me live even if I begged him to spare my life on my knees, and it was unlikely he would let me run away either. So, all I could do right now was to fight the no-brow. I would deal with the pieces that were members of Team Seven afterwards.

It took me exactly five seconds and four moves to defeat him. As soon as he swung that monstrosity he called Kubikiri Houcho in my general direction, I hopped on the damn thing in a crouch position, threw a lightning-fast punch with my metal arm to the side of his head, intending to miss only to flick my wrist and slash in one fluid motion through his neck, killing him in the blink of an eye. I took a sealing scroll out of one of the many slots in my prosthetic arm and used it to keep the head I just hacked off the neck it was attached to mere seconds ago conserved for the bounty that was placed on it. It was nothing personal, but I really needed the money.

I threw myself away from the beheaded corpse as without any warning a couple of senbon blurred towards me, knocking Baka-shi out cold in the process as I landed a foot in his face. As I turned to locate the unknown attacker, I could barely avoid getting skewered like a pincushion as more senbon were thrown at me, this time from a completely different direction. Judging from the interval of the first and second volley of senbon that had been thrown at me, I'd say that someone was extremely put off of his or her rocker that I had just killed the no-brow. Just my luck, the guy had another accomplice, one that was extremely hard to track and had been trained fairly well to ANBU standards.

It had been quite a while since the last time I had to resort to using my lenses' special function. I wasn't entirely too fond of the mess they made of your eyes when you'd swap out normal sight for either heat, infrared or chakra vision, but they could save your life when in a pinch. Right now I was sort of forced in a corner, so I guessed that'd count towards "being in a life-threatening position" and the various loopholes I had to exploit in case one of my own rules to live by would hamper my ambitions. While this wasn't exactly the result of my own actions, it still required me to abandon a few of my scruples for the time being.

Heat vision didn't really give any useful results, which was quite weird as most humans were warm-blooded and thus give off a particular signal that could be easily noticed by using heat vision. This could mean one of two things. One; the attacking shinobi was hiding his or her body heat in some way. Two; it wasn't a human I was fighting at the moment. It was more likely the first one; as I couldn't come up with any life form other than a human that was able to use the thin senbon needles in the manner my attacker was doing right now.

Night vision was completely useless. In daylight, using the infrared spectrum would only render you blind, insane or both within moments. This left me only with chakra vision, and I was praying to Kami that this one wouldn't fail me like the other two had. Bingo. There was chakra radiating all over the place, most of it coming from some rectangle-shaped constructs of pure chakra. Okay, this was seriously new to me, and I thought I'd seen it all by now.

Quickly finding my way to the first chakra construct, I could barely register a blur of chakra passing from one of those things to another, only to completely disappear as soon as it came into contact with whatever it was. Seems like my enemy was able to travel between those things at his or her leisure. Interesting and all, but right now it was a serious pain in the ass. I needed to lure that damned nin out of his or her hiding spot, but the only way to do so that came to my mind was to smash those chakra constructs to pieces one by one, and that was exactly what I would do. A few minutes later I was standing in front of the last one looking at the image in it in sullen resignation. The last thing I expected to see, much less handle was a broken teenage girl crying her eyes out in a mixture of grief and despair. I couldn't exactly see her face, but her body language and her actions kind of spoke for her instead.

It took a lot of self-restraint to repress the urge to comfort her, violently shut her up or allow her to kill me in retribution for what I did, but I managed to do so and sat down in front of her waiting until she had finally calmed down enough to get her to talk without any emotional interference from her part. I slowly raised my hands into the air showing that I was unarmed and willing to negotiate with her. Obviously she didn't like me all that much, or she was still mourning Zabuza's death wrought by my hands.

"Say, would you like to join me and my fellow Konoha ninja for the foreseeable future?" I began, only to take on a defensive stance when she went rather stiff as soon as I said the word 'join'. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I figured being left here all by yourself wouldn't be all that great either," I continued wary of any signs of aggression building up. There weren't, if you exclude the fact she was still as rigid as a plank. Then the completely unexpected happened. She just threw herself at my feet, sobbing as she barely managed to proclaim her gratitude for me allowing her to live, much less taking her with me. Well, a simple thank you might've done the trick, but this was simply overwhelming.

"Okay… erm, would you mind stop crying on my sandals, they're quite expensive and the material they're made of is quite hard to find, and I don't think the salt in your tears is going to work miracles on them." I managed to rant, making her flinch from the bluntness of the verbal jab I just threw at her. She stood up, brushed off her clothes with all the dignity she could muster after that rather humiliating display she just gave me, took off her mask and smiled while at the same time looking for solace and honesty in my eyes, which I gave by nodding and smiling myself.

"Let's go find my team and introduce you, shall we?" I asked her, offering my normal hand to her. In the recesses of my mind however, Kyuubi was throwing a tantrum. "_Would you stop that already? It's not like I want to marry her at the spot, you hormone-driven vixen._" I told her, effectively shutting her up for the time being. "_Besides, if I wanted to make her or any other woman my wife, I would have to ask you to approve my other future 'mate'. What good is it if you're not satisfied with someone you would spend a lifetime with anyway?_" She couldn't quite answer that question, which I intended to be rhetorical to begin with.

After I found our way back to the rest of the group, I fully witnessed the results of the battle against Zabuza for the first time. Baka-shi was still out cold, which I took in with a mixture of satisfaction and worry; not for the fact that he was unable to protect the team, I could do that myself, but for the fact that if he wouldn't wake up in time to take up the leadership role my true persona would be unveiled. Pinky was unconscious as well; the difference with her was that she was frothing at the mouth, a perfect image in my mind that would overlap with her being an obnoxious, violent and rabid fan girl. I let out a hearty chuckle at the sight of her spasming body and proceeded to check out the Uchiha and the bridge builder. Tazuna was still out cold, but he at least woke up when I prodded him in the side. Uchiha had managed to stay conscious, thus earning a few points in my book, but he was clearly shaken by the killing intent he had felt.

I sighed and motioned for Haku, who told me her name and history as we walked back to where I knew my team to be found, to give me one of her senbon. I watched as the Uchiha went limp with slight curiosity after I had stabbed the thing into a spot Haku told me would cause the recipient to enter a temporary state of death. After making the hand seals for kage bunshin and calling two clones into existence, I ordered them to pick up the bodies of my teammates while I picked up the Kubikiri Houcho that had no wielder, only to present it to Haku.

"This one belongs to you, seeing that I have no need for it and it belonged to the man you called your sensei. It's only right that you take it, even if you have no use for it yourself," I said, again putting her into a crying fit as she was reminded of the fact that her father figure was killed by me. Willing to give her the privacy she needed for now, I picked up Baka-shi and told her that I'd be heading to town, and if she needed me she could most likely find me or one of my shadow clones on the incomplete bridge for the time being.

* * *

A/N: I guess some translation and explanation in order for people unfamiliar with the terms would be appropriate. May include some heavy spoilers, so read or ignore this at your own discretion.

Kagebunshin: A jounin level jutsu that allows the user to create solid copies of him or herself while also splitting the chakra evenly among the original and the clones generated. Anything experienced by the clones will be transferred to the original and any clones that were still active upon cancel. Itachi has developed a variant of the technique where upon cancel it disperses into a flock of crows instead of poofing out of existence in a cloud of smoke. Because of Itachi's death, it is unlikely if Mr. Kishimoto will let us Naruto fans know whether the difference is purely cosmetic or not.

Kubikiri Houcho: The heavy sword wielded by Zabuza, the Devil of the Hidden Mist and one of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist. It is mentioned in canon that the weapons of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist are passed down from generation to generation, but it's unknown whether or not it was Zabuza that gave it the name "Beheading Cleaver." (Officially it's called the Decapitating Carving Knife, but hey, Beheading Cleaver sounds better, and it holds the same meaning, no?)

I'm going to have to 'retcon' a bit about the sword stored in Naruto's metal arm. The problem is that a fifteen inches long object has some difficulties staying in the same spot when a joint like an elbow basically shifts angles all the time. So I'm going to have to change a few details about the method of containment because of the physical impossibilities, as strange as it may sound. As of now it is stored in a seal located in a really tricky spot somewhere in his lower arm where one would normally find bones. Instead he will now call it forth by pushing some chakra into the seal and flicking his wrist as described in the Author Notes of the previous chapter.

Also, it was a bit presumptuous of me to state that the Battle on the Bridge would be in this chapter. I'm afraid I have to apologize to everyone who expected it to turn out as such. As a form of consolation I will add an omake next chapter. If it proves to be worth doing I'll see if I can do one every couple of chapters or so. Stay on the lookout for the next update! And a hearty thank you for those who found enough time and energy to review!


	4. There's nothing like the present times

I don't own Naruto. Sad, isn't it?

* * *

Having dropped my unconscious and in one case paralyzed teammates off at Tazuna's place along with my two clones, I ordered one of the two to explore the town and snoop around for some more details on Gato and his cronies, and the other to help the construction crew at the bridge in any way possible.

I myself secretly went to a nearby forest for the purpose of training, mostly so because to hide my abilities from any prying eyes. The trees here were perfect for chakra control exercises, as was the nearby lake and the density of the forest made for a calm and undisturbed environment that exceeded my expectations completely.

My training session began with twenty minutes of warming up, flexing and stretching exercises. From there I would move to heavier taijutsu training, and several kenjutsu drills from my personal sword fighting style, before switching to some Fuuton jutsus like the Kaze no Yaiba, which had originated from Sunagakure, and the personal sword fighting style I happen to have aptly named Dance of the Wind Serpent after its base of evasive maneuvers and counterattacks. Incorporating the Kaze no Yaiba in it had drastically improved its effectiveness by increasing the maximum range and damage it could inflict. Uchiha would gladly kill for learning jutsu like these, only giving me all the more reason to keep them one of my many secrets.

The sunset happened to kick in quicker than I expected, so I called it a day and began to trek back to Tazuna's house for the night. It wasn't wise to linger when it was dark, unless you're a ninja, but right now it was the last thing on my mind to test my luck, especially with Gato's cronies lurking about. I had the feeling that Zabuza wasn't exactly the only missing Nin he had managed to bait with promises of money and power he wouldn't uphold.

It was extremely funny to see how the next morning Pinky was sitting at the other end of the dinner table, cowering every time she saw me lay eyes on her. Uchiha was being spoon-fed by both Baka-shi and Pinky like a toddler, but I knew it was the side effect of me putting him in a near-death state, as it did have that kind of effect afterwards. Still, it was pretty impressive he was already able to move his legs enough to be able to walk around. Heck, he even slipped back into his standard brooding scowl a few times during the day.

After looking at me for while with this indecipherable expression on his face, Uchiha began to babble about what he saw the other day before he was incapacitated by me. Judging from Pinky's prior quirks, I'd say he had already mouthed a similar tale to her, probably at some point between yesterday afternoon and this morning. This one seemed to be primarily aimed at Baka-shi, who narrowed his only visible eye in a frown that was barely noticeable at the parts where I killed Zabuza through decapitation and came back with a girl dressed in hunter nin clothing after a rough ten minute disappearance.

I expected Baka-shi to jump the gun at the moment I finished my meal and told everyone I would be going out for a couple of hours to train. Even more surprising was that he didn't follow or had me followed by somebody. I'm not sure what the Jounin was planning but it most likely wouldn't be good, considering the guy was an ANBU captain before he 'began' leading Genin teams on missions.

I brushed my worries to the side, confidently thinking that if I was able to beat Zabuza in five seconds flat, Baka-shi would pose just as little a threat to me. The two had been fairly evenly matched, and I was able to kill one of them in direct combat, even if he was taken by surprise. So I was pretty certain I could deal with the other just as effortlessly. Boy, I had never been more wrong in my life.

When I came back from a rather intense training session he didn't jump the gun on me either, which was a little unnerving. Instead he started to ask all sorts of annoying questions, and began playing mind games with me right away. I snickered at the man in my mind, and subtly began my own set of mind games against him, while keeping an innocent façade all the while at the same time.

After a while of throwing remarks at each other he probably felt his efforts were wasted on me and dismissed me, most likely because he thought he'd never get anything interesting out of me. I was glad to be able to get away from him at this point, as I couldn't take much more before I'd snap and lash out at him.

Some time later I ran into Haku at my training spot and greeted her politely. As it was, she was actually powerful enough to pack a serious punch with her Ice jutsu arsenal and skill with senbon as her choice of throwing weapon, as opposed to the more commonly used shuriken or kunai. Besides, she had been used as a human tool throughout her youth and she didn't seem to mind being a 'tool' again. I didn't exactly agree with her view on the matter, but the idea had been in her mind for so long it would take a very long time and a great amount of effort to change that. It was something that time alone wouldn't be able to heal.

She asked me if I could teach her how to wield the Kubikiri Houcho properly. I told her I couldn't, as the only one who could teach her how was the girl herself. I proceeded with telling her I was willing to help her achieve that, lifting her spirits. She took my words to heart and began a training regimen to be able to wield her late sensei's weapon, one that made my own pale by comparison.

Her progress with the monstrous sword was bordering on insanity. Within hours she could already swing the massive thing in wide arcs with a great amount of effort on her part, although she lacked any form of control over the thing and was basically throwing it at imaginary targets without any sort of precision in her attacks.

That particular problem was taken care of in a couple of days of rigorous training. The end result was astonishing. She actually handled the thing far better than Zabuza, and that was saying a lot. Even more puzzling was the fact that she could still fit in the clothes that she wore prior to the Kubikiri Houcho training regimen, as her body had taken on slightly more muscle tone and was a bit bulkier as a result. The weirdest thing of all being that her new look was rather... fitting as it actually made her look more feminine for some twisted reason, considering she was a girl!

Her training regimen had paid off triple the time and energy spent. After all the gruesome conditioning she had somehow managed to fit in four days, the result was pretty obvious. She flung that massive steel monstrosity she had begun to affectionally call Hou-chan since yesterday around with such ease that it looked like the thing had turned as light as a kunai. I shivered at the thought of what she'd be able to do to me if I ever incurred her wrath. I sure as hell didn't want to find out about that, she'd have me sliced in mincemeat within seconds.

The following morning I found out that the bridge construction had come to a halt through the memories of the two shadow clones I had put on that task. Because of some circumstances in those memories I had enough information that it had been Gato's meddling again. One, it was the bloody middle of the night, which was enough reason in itself to think it had something to do with Gato, as only shinobi, criminals and / or outlaws would act during the night. Two, it had been twelve Kumogakure chuunin who had attacked. Three, each and every one of their faces was in my most recent copy of the Konoha bingo book, so they were unquestionably missing Nin.

From the memories of my clones I was able to find out how five of the attackers had died, three of them were badly injured and most likely wouldn't survive without proper medical care, and the remaining four were probably sore all over their bodies and suffering through a mild case of chakra exhaustion right now.

I left a brief note at Tazuna's place with the major circumstances explained while keeping some of the more pertinent details unaddressed, before rushing off to where I knew Gato's hideout and base of operations was located. On my way there I sent a bunshin to Haku with the message that I would ransack the place and if she didn't hurry I would kill everyone there myself, instead of leaving some alive for her personal satisfaction. She was already there before I even arrived, no doubt had she been using her Ice Mirrors to gain on me, the cheater.

'Going on a rampage' was a massive understatement to what we were about to pull off. I asked if she would mind let me handle a couple of things first before we killed everyone out there. She merely looked at me with a mixture of boredom and slight curiosity before giving a curt nod. After I had finished explaining why, her face morphed into a devious and feral grin that would put a demon's to shame. She gave me a strong pat on the back, admitting she had never dreamed of pulling off what we were about to. Obviously it was inspired by my inner prankster through and through.

Time to put phase one of operation annihilation into motion. Calling a bunshin into existence and have it henge into an apparently injured bandit before it stormed into the building yelling about intruders that would kill everyone inside. Chaos erupted among everyone in the direct vicinity as they grabbed for a weapon to defend themselves with, or deserted without second thought and ran off to Kami knows where, fearing for their lives.

The clone didn't stop there, but went on to the second floor causing a repeat of the consternation on the floor below. A massive rush for some weapon to defend themselves and people running for their lives. Gato was barking at the ones grabbing weapons to protect him against all odds. The clone approached the man with a picture perfect expression of worry on its face and gave the corrupt businessman some 'wonderful advice' that it'd be prudent to hide at some hidden and secluded location inside the building. Following the businessman to said location, the clone disappeared in a poof of smoke once given the opportunity.

I honestly couldn't believe my eyes when I witnessed the man's stupidity. Instead of staying where he would be protected by an immense amount of bandits and the like, he trusts the advice of someone he barely knows to bet his life upon. If this was what wealth and power did to the mind, I'd rather be poor and weak for the rest of my life.

Now that we had Gato exactly where we wanted him to be, it was time to put phase two of our plan in action. I gave a brief nod and a wink at Haku, who winked back at me as she grabbed the handle of the Kubikiri Houcho in a fairly tight grip while walking in plain sight before letting an intimidating shout for blood fill the air as she projected a massive killing intent everywhere, before charging in with the sole purpose of causing a bloodbath.

Time for phase three to be put into motion. While Haku was slaughtering the bandits by the dozens, I was to sneak inside the building and go to the room where Gato was hiding, bully him into writing down all of his passwords, codes and back account numbers et cetera. After I had written everything down in an organized manner, I flashed him a bloodthirsty grin, which unnerved him greatly, and he was only able to stammer out a cry for help nobody could hear except the two of us before I tore his head apart from his body, pulling his intact spine out with it. "Hasta la vista, shitface," I snickered at the mutilated body before spitting on the ground simply for good measure.

Haku seemed to be enjoying the carnage she was creating a little too much for my liking, and I involuntarily winced as she ran the entirety of the Kubikiri Houcho through a bandit that just came rushing at her with a tanto in his hand. "_I guess she's taking after her deceased father… Perhaps it is the sword that increases the wielder's unsatisfactory lust for bloodshed?_" I asked Kyuubi in the recesses my mind. "_**Maybe, but you shouldn't be that surprised about it. Some weapons are blessed by divine powers to combat evil spirits and exorcise demons and the like, while others are cursed and will cause suffering and despair regardless of the wielder throughout the world. It is the sword that controls the swordsman, some more than others and it will always remain that way.**_" She responded. "_So, according to you the Kubikiri Houcho is a cursed sword?_" I asked, trying to process this new piece of information. "_**Not per se. You should observe if you wish to find out."**_

Kyuubi was right about one thing. Something was manipulating, for a lack of a better term, the young swordswoman in a way I would never have imagined. I could barely sense some sort of… aura, or rather a presence coming from the sword that in Haku's hands was causing yet more blood to be spilled every second. It seemed to slowly form into an adult male, but I couldn't quite find any details about him. He was looking rather familiar to me though, making me wonder where I could've met that person before. All of a sudden it hit me like an exploding tag. Zabuza! Somehow, I don't know how, why or when, he found a way to transfer or bind his consciousness or something to the weapon the moment he died. Kyuubi was just as much as surprised as I was about this revelation, yet something in this image felt horribly wrong, something we could not quite put a finger on.

* * *

A/N:

_Yay, Cliffhanger no jutsu_! _Tobi is a good boooooooy_~! **Muhahah, nothing can beat my genius intellect and sharp wit for I am Kuranzyan, the eyeball of damnable fluffiness. Wait? What? Urk, I can't believe I said thaaaaaaaa**~ **THUNK**.

Sorry about that. My creative mind went into overdrive, spawning a monstrosity called a lame joke.

Yes, Haku is slowly turning in a second coming of Zabuza, with _that_ time of the month only making it worse. She will be more violent than Sakura and Ino combined on one of their Sasuke-crusades. No, Haku will not fawn over Duck-ass. Period.

The one that can correctly guess, or come closest to guessing what is going on with Haku, Kubikiri Houcho and Dead Man Walking (more like levitating, meh) right now will get to choose a 'random' girl for Naruto's harem. He doesn't have a warning from the realm beyond, he doesn't want tell her to live a happy life (well, he will but that's not why he's in the sword), and he doesn't want to protect her at all (again, he wants to but that's not the reason he's in the sword.)

Options are the following:

- One of the girls that you can vote for, except for the leading / winning girl of the Poll.  
- A girl that has appeared in the Naruto series and hasn't been mentioned in any way yet. This of course includes filler and movie characters.  
- An OC, if you want an original character for the harem, give me a detailed description about said character with a pm.

For the record, there will be **no** yaoi ships in this fic. Yuri might be a possibility later on in the story, when the Harem has grown to an appropriate size for that, but I'll have to refuse any and all male character suggestions. **You have been foretold!**

* * *

**Omake #1: A healthy relationship?**

Zabuza and Haku are watching the progress of Naruto from anime character heaven aka the 'scrapbook'.

"Say, Haku, why did my replacement as primary villain before the time skip last well over half into the second part of the series, and we barely lasted as long as we did?"

"I wouldn't know Zabuza-sama, but maybe it's because of his face."

_Haku sneaks closer to Zabuza as they speak._

"Hmm… I don't think it's that. Maybe it's the fact he's so obsessed with boys roughly thirty-four years younger than him?"

"Zabuza-sama~!"

"Err, oops, sorry Haku, I totally forgot you're really sensitive about that kind of stuff yourself. Wait, what? What'd I say? And why the hell are you clinging on to me?"

"Nothing, Zabuza-sama, you don't need to say anything." (O.o)

"Damn it Haku, get off me or I'll spank you so bad you'll be unable to show off your pretty face to those weirdoes you call your 'friends'.

"Zabuza-sama~! Come back~!"

"Oh hell no, I should've just left you at that damn bridge back home before all of this shit ever happened to me. Stop chasing me, damn it!"

_Omake end_

O.o Well that's one way to look at the relationship between those two. I always thought that it was far from the healthiest ones in the series, and I'm counting Orochimaru-Sasuke in with that! Let me know if this one was good enough.

* * *

And just for kicks, a shorter one.

**#2 Lost in translation / Schoolwork.**

"Ne, ne Kakashi-sensei, can you tell me something about the Kyuubi no Yoko?"

"Did you say something?" (Seriously, I love his reaction when he's reading his smut / Gai is wailing about the Flames of Youth.)

"Fine, I'll just go and ask Zabuza if he can tell me anything about the fur ball. He'll know more about it for sure!"

"Ohayo, Zabuza-san! I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the Kyuubi no Yoko?"

"Of course, kiddo, you see the sword on my back is the one and only Kubikiri Houcho, a weapon of one of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist, and it has a long history that goes way back to…"

*Groan* "Never mind… I'll just write my essay about the sword he's talking about since nobody seems to want to help me with the subject of the Kyuubi attack anyway. Maa take..."

_Omake end_

Obviously the pun here lies with the similar pronunciation of Kyuubi no Yoko and Kubikiri Houcho. Zabuza being the weapon fanatic that he is, hears the name of his weapon instead of the Nine-tailed Fox. I came up with this one after a bout of three cans of iced coffee I drank yesterday evening, so I may have had a moment of total insanity that gave the inspiration for this, and I couldn't sleep at all cuz of the freaking caffeine. I think I'm still high on the damn stuff.


	5. Laughing Mist Demon, Pensive Dragon

I wish I owned Naruto, so Sasuke would've actually died for real in his fight with Killer Bee, and Sai wouldn't be talking about weenies so much. Watching/hearing a Byakuya that goes 'wheeeeee' **or** a Chipmunk Style: Laughing Shark Face, otherwise known as Kisame, should be appropriate for your response, thank you very much.

* * *

This was something I had never thought of to happen. In my relatively 'short' life, compared to the Old Man Hokage at least, I thought I'd seen it all by now. The rise of the youngest and the decline of the older generation. The 'birth' of new clans. The ruin of older ones. Treaties and pacts made and broken. Betrayal, expected and unexpected. I'd seen all those things and more.

But then, when you think you've seen everything already, some completely unexpected and random phenomenon occurs, and just shatters your whole perception of the natural order of things. Trust me when I say that being the victim of a lame joke from some divine force like that, right in front of your eyes, stings like a bloody colony of the most vicious hornets you can think of. It's so not funny to be the victim of that. The emotional trauma is hell.

Right, so after having my whole view on reality smashed to grains of whatever you can come up with, I could only stammer out something that I HOPE that sounded something along the line of "But, you're supposed to be dead! How in the Kami's name and everything else that's supposed to be divine are you even among 'the living!?'"

* * *

Somewhere, far to the west, the eldest of the Sand Siblings and the only female of the three of them, sneezed unladylike during a rather relaxing and pleasant session in the local onsen. "Somebody talking about me, even though I was never one to pay any mind to those silly superstitions. I hope it's a good looking guy, for his sake."

In Konoha, three kunoichi, each of them minding their own business in a separate part of the village, sneezed at the very same moment.

"I bet he looks handsome, and I hope for him that his 'weapons' are good enough for my tastes. If not…" One of them muttered. (Guess who!)

'I hope it is Sasuke-kun, or maybe that hot guy from the academy… What's-his-name? Shiki I think? He was DEFINITELY hot. Now that I think about it, he was also a bit more cheerful than Sasuke-kun. Hmm, who to pick, who to pick?' The second of the three mused, the long row of customers in front of her growing even as she sighed in mild confusion.

'I hope that that was someone who would look at me for what I can do, not for what I should… Tou-san is rather annoyed with me lately, I wish Naruto-kun didn't have to leave the village, even though he was exiled… I don't know what to do…' The last of the three thought this during a short break of her training session with various Branch House members, she was allowed to take a brief breather before being glared back into action by her stern and arrogant father.

In a sophisticated bunker hidden in a secluded clearing somewhere in the country formerly called the Land of Rice Fields, two loud sneezes rang through the mostly vacant dining hall.

"(Censored) moron (censored) (censored) talking (censored) about me, (censored) (censored) pervert." A particularly foul-mouthed kunoichi blurted out in public. 'I hope he's cute and cuddly… The guys here in Oto either look like retch and smell the part, or have totally no interest in women.' She thought, blushing inwardly. She knew she would face an insane load of problems if she would show her true character. She touched her shoulder just to remind herself of the Curse Seal that was located there. Despite all of its benefits, in these kinds of situations it only served to annoy her to no end.

A few tables away from them a kunoichi trainee dressed rather soberly ignored her sudden urge to stop eating her rather spartan meal, and decided to think about the weird sensation later during the day.

In the aftermath of another attack of the Hanzo loyalists, a kunoichi about twenty years old was thinking about the person that was talking about her. Her, of all people. As far as she knew the whole world, except a few individuals, thought that she was dead or more likely, given her gender off worse than that. Her short, bluish hair that was normally adorned by a flower made from origami paper, soon clung to her head as the unrelenting rainfall drenched it thorough. The constant pouring of rain had become somewhat of a beacon of hope for the people of Amegakure, as weird as it may sound. It reminded them of the fact that the world moved onwards, and if the world did, there was no reason why the people of Ame shouldn't do the same.

In one of the many dark and endless pits of her mind, Haku sneezed indignantly. 'Was that Naru- No, Shiki-kun?'

In another mind, the dreaded demonic spirit and tailed beast commonly known as the Nine-tailed Fox was sneezing several times in an uncontrollable bout. "**Damn it!**" She managed to exclaim in-between two particularly powerful sneezes. "**Why… won't… the… damned… sneezing… stop!**"

'_Troublesome much?_' I asked her with a poorly hidden hint of amusement in my voice. '_**Oh for the love of… could you tell me in advance if you plan to do something like this, next time?**_' She asked me, barely keeping her emotions under control. I snickered at her misfortune. '_Offended by the overwhelming madness of your oh so gracious host, aren't you?_'

'…'

'_Alright, alright, I'm sorry, that good enough for you?_'

'_**No. That comment about yourself did you no favours.**_'

'_Gah! You're impossible!_'

I was forced to ignore her tantrum as I couldn't pick up any cries for mercy nor any wails of misery and despair coming from 'the rest of the world'. Splitting my attention into two like I did wasn't the easiest thing, as I had found out soon after I begun with it, but with Kyuubi's advice I managed to pull it off. It definitely had its benefits, especially in situations like the one I had managed to land in out of the blue at the moment. I muttered a quick prayer to Kami that I had learned it, because Zabuza-Haku, whatever I should call 'it', was now after my head, with an expression on Haku's face that promised a whole new meaning to the terms 'pain' and 'suffering'. It was a good thing Zabuza didn't have access to his full chakra reserves at the moment, because he would kill me in the most gruesome way he could think of without second thought.

Oh yes, I was definitely screwed. For starters, this time he would be on his guard, so the surprise element was gone. Pulling another stunt like I did the last time wasn't going to work, I could tell that without even making an attempt. Second, as utterly illogical it sounded, his fury only made him more of a threat than he would have been if he could think rationally. Lastly, I didn't want to kill or hurt Haku. She was as innocent as a lamb, she couldn't find any joy in tormenting, maiming and butchering people whatsoever. I was willing to bet my life on the fact that it hadn't been her I was working with the past few days. Heck, she'd probably throw up in the most exaggerated way I could think of if she'd remember what she, sorry, her possessed body had pulled off in the last fifteen minutes or so.

"Ah, erm… Hi, Mr. Momochi, ehm, would you be so kind to calm down so that we could talk in peace, and sort out a few unaddressed but highly important… things, for a lack of a better word?"

He didn't give any sort of response to my words. Well, he did, but nothing from a positive point of view. Fan-shit-tastic. He was so focused on killing me at the moment that he couldn't see that I was trying to reason with him. The only thing that was any good about this was that he was unable to think properly. He had been overtaken by rage and the 'pure' desire to maim and kill, which made him fight without any form of restraint and without any form of caution to his opponent. It'd make what I was about to do a lot easier, but also way more of a drag.

I was forced to jump rather high to dodge the Kubikiri Houcho, something I didn't quite find useful in regards to my opponent. To avoid being driven into a corner the moment my feet were back on the ground, I performed a somersault in midair during which I bopped him on the head, hard enough to put him in a daze he wouldn't come out of for at least a few minutes.

I quickly went through the hand seals for a simple Genjutsu that would confuse the target with a large number of regular bunshin type copies of the user. It was incredibly useful, since the clones it produced never really vanished. Instead they popped back in existence at random intervals, making it seem like they're simply being made over and over again. For someone like me with no natural affinity for genjutsu or some Kekkei Genkai like the Sharingan, it was really hard to pull off. Pinky was a genjutsu type kunoichi according to Baka-shi, which meant that IF she'd actually train for once in a while, she would have the chance to become just as proficient at genjutsu as Yuuhi Kurenai, who is registered in the Bingo Book with the moniker 'Phantasm Queen of Konoha'.

Great. Just great. I've lost my focus, again. I was doing… Ah yes, Zabuza. I let him cool off a bit on my genjutsu until he was able to talk without yelling some random and unintelligible death threat, or some random promise of pulling some form of mutilation on me. I'm not going to repeat what he said. Hearing them the first time is probably enough to give even a seasoned interrogator or torturer a run for his money. Me? The things that rolled out of his mouth didn't bother me in the slightest, mostly because of the rather cruel treatment of seven years, derived of nothing but sheer hate and abuse from Konoha citizenry, and while the eight years following my 'exile' were pleasant and relatively soothing they were hardly any less comforting, mostly so because of Kyuubi. In the beginning she would act like a cranky and menacing fifty feet tall fox, snarling and roaring and make spiteful comments about the human race in general, and in particular me and the Yondaime Hokage, who was my biological father, according to her. Oh, I forgot to add the seal to that list.

That had quickly changed when I finally had enough of her less than stellar attitude, and struck back hard with opposable thumbs on top. Trust me if I say that she had been more than surprised to witness me snap in front of her. It had shut her up immediately, and I have to say that it felt GOOD to see her at a loss of words. We've been on speaking terms since then, and she was the one that was willing to bury the hatchet a few weeks later. She's become rather docile since, I guess it's an animal or a demon thing. Not sure about that, though. I'll have to ask her about that…

I really need to stop thinking so much. Zabuza was having fun hacking and slashing away at imaginary clones, and I wasn't one to deny him that. I had killed the man, he came back to life by possessing the body of his protégé, even though I didn't quite like it, the man's will to live was a reminder of why life shouldn't be thrown away excessively.

I sighed. It would take a while… I had some time left before Baka-shi would grow suspicious on me, but I would have to put a stop to his rampage if I ever wanted Haku back. I did save her after all. Would be a waste of effort not to take her in. She'll prove to be a valuable ally at the very least, and… No, I'm not going to think about that sort of thing yet. Not until I can stop looking over my shoulder every three to five seconds in excessive paranoia.

Finally, it seems Mr. No-brow has calmed down. Let's get him talking…

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A/N:

I wish I could've put a bit more... substantial content in this chapter, but as it is, I'm terrible at AU writing.

Feel free to Review.


	6. Lies and surprises of a unknown quality

You know, I'm glad Zabuza didn't start to whine or begin a sob story. I hate those kinds of people that do exactly that when life doesn't go the way they want it to go. It shows just how conceited and completely useless they are. Ah well, time to begin my query.

"Good day to you, Mr. Momochi! I take it you've had enough fun killing all those bandits and a small army of my clones? I remember that one where you rammed the Kubikiri in its entirety through his abdomen. That was a good one… I wonder where you got the inspiration for that."

For a moment I thought he'd start fighting again, but then he sighed, rather deep I might add, and responded with questions of his own.

"What's it to ya, brat? What'd you want from a poor and miserable outlaw like me?"

"I don't know how to say this… but," I hesitated. Would he be offended by this? He scoffed at me, obviously annoyed by my hesitation. "Spill it, brat, I haven't got all day."

"Well, you're supposed to be dead…" I nervously muttered. "Yeah yeah, and you're the one that killed me, right?" he filled in.

"Huh? How'd you know?" I asked, stunned. "Who cares? All I know I've been done in by some greenhorn punk from Konoha, which I don't like at all. What's the world come to if one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist gets dropped like a sick weasel?" He scoffed.

Okay… not like I expected that, but it's a good thing he's more angry at himself than at me, or anyone else for that matter. Still, the greenhorn jab went a little too low for me to ignore.

"Actually, I'm not a 'greenhorn punk' at all. I'm registered as 'The Spirit' in the universal Bingo Book. In Iwa, I'm known as 'Blood Rain' and in both Kumo and Kiri I'm listed as 'Black Sun'."

His eyes went wide at the last two words. "Holy shit! You're 'Black Sun'? About three years ago, that Rogue nin easily slaughtered two-thirds of the Kirigakure ANBU and sent the Mizukage to the hospital for three months after someone up high pissed him off by refusing to pay up when a high-priority assassination mission had been completed?"

I nodded. He whistled. "Damn, no wonder I dropped that fast. Fighting 'Black Sun', what was I thinking?" He mused out loud.

I cleared my throat, snapping him back to the present. "Oh yeah. Sorry. Well, I think I should let this one go. 'Black Sun'… I'm an idiot."

"Thanks… Wouldn't want to have to kill you once more. Besides, it's not your life I'll be taking this time around… Haku's." I added, after seeing his confused expression.

"What the hell are ya talking about…? Haku's life?" He asked, looking down at his protégé's body. "Ah, damn it all."

"I take it that this means you didn't intend for your mortal soul to be bound to your weapon, much less have it possess the first person to become attached to the thing… What the hell happened?" I asked, to nobody in particular.

"Beats me, I didn't want this. No wait; I wanted this, but not this. Does that make any sense?"

"Yes… and no. Anyway, let's talk somewhere else; the smell of blood is irking the fuck out of me." I moved my neck from the left to the right and rolled my shoulders in an attempt to work out the stiffness.

"Aye aye, Capt'n 'Black Sun'!" He chuckled when I fixed a death glare at him. God, you'd think the guy be more subdued, but nope… It's not like you die every day of the week, and through some completely unexpected phenomenon, get called back to earth. To life.

"Get your arse back in your dick representation, mist imp, or I'll roast your brains on a bonfire and stuff it through your ears." I growled in response to his comment. I began to wonder if I should take the damn sword back, and have it scrapped and refurbished into a toilet seat.

* * *

A couple of days later we, and with that I mean Team Seven plus Haku _and_ Zabuza, though nobody knew the Demon of the Mist was actually still alive and kicking, were back in Konoha. I'd fabricated a story about Haku being a hunter-nin with an almost extinct bloodline, who'd been chasing Zabuza around for dear life, as she'd been forced to kill him personally by the Yondaime Mizukage. Failure meant a certain death, and with I having 'stolen' her 'kill' she'd be killed as an example of disobedience and treason. With her having nowhere else to go, I promised to take care of her from that moment onwards.

While I was talking, Pinky was screeching everyone's ears off, jittering about how Uchiha would've done the same if it happened to her, much to everyone's annoyance. Seriously, I think she'll never sort out her priorities if it's up to her. Why she even is a ninja in the first place I cannot begin to fathom. Oh, she has the book smarts, but come on, that is far from adequate in the real world, isn't it? Life and death aren't dictated by paragraphs and statistics. Trust me, I know.

In any case, Gatou was dead and his cronies had been dealt with, and the people of Wave Country were free to do as they wished. I had split the vast amounts of money of the shipping tycoon in fives. I spread a fifth out over the populace of Wave. Hey, I may be a greedy bastard and everything, but that's just my self preservation. The world's run by money and those who have it, after all. Anyway, I gave them a fifth of the total money Gatou owned before he died. It's probably more than the slimy little snot had wrenched from them with his grimy, grubby hands, so things will get better than before for the people of Wave. Needless to say, I kept the rest of Gatou's fortunes for myself.

Not much happened for some time, until Baka-shi decided to pop up one day and announce in that fake-cheery voice of his that he'd nominated us for the chuunin exams. Kami help me, but I actually think I fell in love with him for barely a nanosecond. While it was apparent he didn't really trust me, he had kept further questionnaires to a minimum. Something I was glad for. Little did I know he would have me subjected to Morino Ibiki after the exams to find out about my true loyalties, if the whole invasion fiasco didn't fall down from the blue during the exams themselves.

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A/N:

Chuunin Exams! CHUUNIN EXAMS! This is going to be so much fun to write!

A very short update, but I hope it'll suit your tastes and show you that I've not completely forgotten this project of mine.

The Poll on Naruto's last harem member is obviously closed and done with. If you're interested in finding out about the lucky women, go read the paragraph of the sneezing ladies in last chapter. It'll give you a very good idea of who Naruto (known as Shiki) will spend his daily life with.


	7. An exam in pranking people, oh my!

Five hours of sleep was the standard I had set for myself, for it would keep my senses on edge and my reflexes sharp. Grudgingly I took off my nightwear and made a sparse but varied breakfast for myself with the little I had scavenged the other night in the woods surrounding Konoha. Haku woke up by the time I finished munching on a boiled egg. A mild groan came from the direction of her room. A slightly manic grin formed on my face as I heard that. You'd think she'd be used to irregular days and interrupted bouts of sleep, but nothing could be more wrong than that.

I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and began writing down a couple of things Haku needed to know, as I would be gone for an unspecified amount of time and this would be my last shot at telling her those. Chuunin exams were a bit of a hassle, and they happen to be held every six months or so. You never knew what the hosting Hidden Village would come up with, so everyone expected everything.

That sounded weird, I know. Then again, we're shinobi. We are supposed to be weird. Anyway, I wrote down that I didn't know how long I'd be gone, so she'd have to take care of herself in the meantime, and didn't have to expect me anytime soon. If I'd be able to come back early, it would be my own fault she didn't prepare enough food. Saves the both of us the trouble that way.

A few hours of the usual intensive morning training later, Team Seven was assembled to be briefed on the exams as a whole and how teamwork was once again the greatest asset a genin could have. Too bad I'm not just any genin.

According to Baka-shi we were part of this semi-annual's genin-hopeful group, called the Konoha Twelve. It had most of the genin graduates of our year, and a team from last year. Not much else of interest was said and done, and we were free to go not soon after a rather awkward silence.

As I strolled through the streets by myself in the short time I had before the first exam started, I ran into this midget called Konohamaru, apparently the grandson of the Sandaime. After shooing him off, I was very surprised to hear him yelling for help behind me.

Turns out some idiot from Ame had decided to pull a funny stunt and try to kidnap the brat, during the middle of daytime, in public. Stupid people don't live very long, and I think I made that painfully obvious when I hammered the moron's brains up a notch with my metal arm. A little too violent for him, because he turned out to be a Konoha chuunin in disguise. Just my luck. Thankfully I hadn't actually killed him. Would've been a downright bloody mess if I did.

I made my way to the building the first exam was to be held without any other interruptions, waited for my teammates to appear as I couldn't progress without them and the three of us made our way to the second floor, where some Konoha genin I found to be looking remarkably similar to some Chuunin I saw at some point in the past few days. They were using a rather flawed genjutsu to make some of the genin hopefuls believe that they already were on the third floor.

Uchiha was about to announce that they remove the genjutsu, but I stopped him from blabbing with by giving him a brief taste of my killing intent. I shook my head at his inquisitive reaction, motioning for him to drop the questions until later. Pinky was clueless throughout the whole ordeal, as always.

The first exam was a piece of cake, but it had been interesting enough. Ninja were supposed to be gathering information at times, and the exam served to simulate such an occasion. It was even made more obvious through the point deduction system, as normally, if you're caught cheating, you're removed from partaking in the exam. To that end, I figured that they had planted a couple of fake genin who'd be able to complete the tests easily. The questions were simply too advanced in nature for 'the normal genin' to be able to answer them correctly.

Those factors alone would make any genin break out in cold sweat, which was a requirement for the second condition of the exam. Namely, the ability to keep your cool under any given circumstance. To be able to handle troublesome and life-threatening situations with a sound mind.

Add the fact that with a very intimidating interrogation expert being the one in charge of the exam, and a whole lot of genin present, the floor was quite wet after some time. Luckily I'd prepared a nifty trick beforehand, in the form of a kagebunshin under a henge, making it look like a kunai. That had been quite funny, really.

I had just managed to get a good look at the other Konoha rookie hopefuls. Kiba was as cocky as ever with his dog, Akamaru, hitching a ride on his head, while Shino was as enigmatic and quiet as any Aburame I'd known in the past. This Hyuuga girl called Hinata, I think, was trying not to get noticed, and she was doing a remarkably good job of it. I think it was her from the Academy, but I'm not all that sure. She let out a rather cute gasp when she noticed I was looking at her. Kind of like a hiccup.

There was Chouji, as usual being his hungry self. Shikamaru, who wasn't paying attention all that much, though he did look at me real funny when I chuckled as Chouji made a comment about Akamaru looking tasty. Ah… Ino, every bit as loud and obnoxious as ever in her self-proclaimed rivalry with Pinky. At least she doesn't treat her teammates the same way Pinky does. Wait, did she just blush? Great, now I'm starting to be hunted by a legion of Fan Girls… Shinigami, please, please tell me you've reserved a special seat of honour in your residence, I think I might need it soon.

A team I hadn't had the fortune of meeting yet, made its appearance known. A non-descript girl was casually staying behind the two others. The only feature that was of any worth noting was her hair, tied into two small buns reminiscent of panda ears. She wasn't anything out of the ordinary though. She was looking at me rather funny, I might add. Shinigami-sama… please, answer my plea for help!

Another Hyuuga, if his eyes were any indication. Nothing to add to that except for the fact that that Hinata girl was trying even harder to avoid being noticed when he came into view. Last but… No, make that exactly the least. This guy reeked of all of the extravaganza the other two on his team seemed to lack, and for good reason. He was as eccentric as a snail with a rabies infection. It's unlikely that my eyes will ever recover from that horrible sight. Yeuch. Green used to be one of my favourite colours, up until now. I think I'll settle for a tacky, 'I'm here, please kill me' kind of orange instead…

This Konoha genin called Yakushi Kabuto made his appearance. After chiding us for making such a racket, he explained a bit about the Hidden Villages scattered throughout the world. His source was seriously flawed and inaccurate. The idiot didn't even address Ame, Kusa and Taki, and while he did weave in a remark about Oto, he didn't provide any substantial clues, such as the fact that the majority of its population were people, mostly missing nin, with rare and valuable skills and bloodlines.

Uchiha asked him if he had any information on individuals. The idiot conceded, and asked who he was interested in. Uchiha asked about the Rabies Infected-Snail Guy, some Gaara of the Sand Waterfall guy, and me. I'm seriously flattered. Well, it was very surprising to learn that the Rabies Infected-Snail Guy had some sort of condition that didn't allow him to properly use chakra for some reason. Most likely underdeveloped chakra coils or something.

This Gaara fellow was someone I needed to watch out for. 'Walked away from a B-rank without so much a scratch on him. In fact, he has never been injured in his life.' Sounds to me like he's a Host to a Tailed Beast, just like I am. Given his moniker, 'Sand Waterfall', I'd say it's the Ichibi, Shukaku. Now that's just great… Suna has smuggled a Host into the Genin exam. Something is going on here and I don't like it one bit. For all I plan to do, a destroyed Konoha isn't on the list.

Oh, here comes a good part. The looks on their faces when the idiot finally took out the card about me and everyone witnessed a rainbow-coloured 'DON'T KNOW JACK SHITE, BUGGER SOMEONE ELSE!' scribbled on it, from the upper left corner to the lower right. I was rolling on the floor laughing so hard I think I disrupted my kidneys or something. They weren't really amused, but I don't care. It was hilarious!

Shortly after I'd stopped laughing I threw the henge'd kagebunshin at the ceiling, preventing an attack from a trio of Oto nin. That wasn't the actual reason I'd thrown it, but it covered up the real reason, which was that I planted it there, just so that it could spy on people from above. The Oto nin were probably going to hit that Yakushi guy for a lame comment or something, I heard them grumbling about the thrown kunai disrupting their plan. I don't really care if they do, but… you know, the smell of blood irks the fuck out of me. It makes me want to hit someone real bad, and when I do, worse comes to worst. Kyuubi wasn't sure whether the cause of it was something I picked up from being her Host or from something else, but when I go on the violence tour, I'm not that easy to stop. It also blows my cover to bits, and that's something I couldn't have happen.

After some time into the test, I pulled the kunai shaped kagebunshin from the ceiling, using a piece of metal wire. Pretending to have remembered that I had thrown it there only now, all I needed to do was making a show of myself putting it back into my weapon pouch, while in actuality I discreetly dispelled the kagebunshin, receiving its memories in the process. After that, I could write down the answers to the first nine questions with impunity. Now if that's not a walk in the park, I don't know what would be.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't honed my senses to their limit. The Proctor of the first exam was looking at me real funny when I reacted to a whooshing sound I heard outside. It went something like this. I decided I could make use of this.

"Aaaah, noooo, the chickens are coming! The chickens! Run for your lives, there's a chicken coming this waaaaaay~!" I pretended to faint, biting through a foam pill, one of those things you can get at a prank store, making my mouth froth. I threw in a couple of spasms, as it was supposed to look like a hysterical fit. At this moment, the window shattered, showering people with glass fragments. The timing couldn't have been better.

I swear, over half of the present genin fell backwards toppling their chairs, shouting "Chicken!" in fright. I'll never forget this, never. Too bad I can't take a picture of this. Would've been awesome if I had a picture of it in a photo album or something, so I could talk about on some party.

* * *

A/N: Oh yeah, Naruto's letting out a piece of the real him, and he's doing pranks. What more can you wish for?

Next time: Exam Number Two, What Forest of Death? Forest of Piggyback, that's more like it!


	8. It was fun while it lasted, I'm afraid

Disclaimer: don't own, don't want, don't need. Wait, that's not right. I do want. I do need. But I definitely don't own. Now where's my straciatella yogurt? The… erm… chocolate flakes-thingy. Raah! Keep your grimy hands off my yogurt!

* * *

People think that when your emotions are suppressed in some way, you become some sort of stone cold, amorally detached, murdering abomination in the shape and form of a human. They're wrong about that, it's a common misconception rooted in fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar. I know that they're wrong about it, because I regularly suppress my emotions myself, and I haven't turned into a homicidal freak at all.

Sort of. I still kill people. Then again, I'm a shinobi. Shinobi kill people for a living.

I'm not the best individual to judge about such things, but alas, I'm not in a position where I can trust random strangers with some of my more… intimate secrets, and so, I cannot ask them to be the impartial judge in this triviality.

Naturally, I stop at making it a permanent change though. Life is far more interesting when you enjoy the benefits of nature as they were intended from the beginning. But I digress.

Suppressing your emotions allows you to think more clearly, see things in a far more logical light, make level-headed judgements in particularly demanding moments. You can come up with a logical, thorough attack plan, for one, provided that you keep your head and feet on the ground and don't start to think the power of your 'side' is so great nobody is able to match it.

That is one of the biggest factors observed in most runaway shinobi and kunoichi. They start to lose sight of some of the more little things in life, among which is the often argued topic of the 'best' or the 'easy' way out of a particular situation. That is usually the point when they lose themselves to madness.

Of course, there have to be limits to the ability to suppress emotions. It goes completely haywire when somebody suppresses his or her moral ambiguity in the process. This occurs when the subject snaps under their psychological strain, and enters a dismissive state of mind that some of the more experienced ninja have christened as 'Havin' sniffed the daisies a tad too much', in their usual stoic and indifferent demeanour. Of course, the expression does little to describe the actual psychological disorder a 'Daisy-sniffer' has.

Haku had come pretty close to becoming such a 'Daisy-sniffer', and I know for a fact that eventually she would've become one had it not been for my… timely intervention. The cost I will have to pay for meddling with her life like the way it had been done is one I shall gladly pay when the time is right for me to do so.

Grief and fear breed hate, hate inadvertently breeds rage, and rage, after a long psychological process, comes to breed a sense of loss, of emptiness in one's heart that in most cases cannot be mended in any way, shape, or form. They become dull, broken people, with one of two outcomes. They lose their interest in life and living. They are most likely to end up wasting away from starvation or thirst, simply because they do not think that it is important to nourish the body any longer. There are those that still have enough sense of self-preservation; they usually end up for the worse, unless they're truly lucky.

You'll have to remember what I just said, because it'll explain a great lot about where I come from, what I think, what I see, how I respond to things that are going to happen to me in the future. Enough of the morality 'drivel'; it is time to go back to the events of the world of sin and lies, the realm of mortal men.

I suppressed a grin when I heard one Mitarashi Anko's response to the chaos that she only just now noticed. As she was trying to figure out exactly what, or more accurately _who_ had ruined her surprise entrance, I managed to sneak up to the large piece of canvas she'd used for her introduction, and wrote down something that would turn the rather... seductively dressed woman into a psychotic murderer.

It had something to do with the fact that a very old, white haired, retired shinobi and pervert that regularly took to peeking through a small hole at the women's side of the hot springs had stolen a batch of Mitarashi's favorite food. Nobody noticed that I had done so yet, with all the consternation going on in the room. They would find out very soon, though.

I retreated back to my assigned seat and watched the hysterics unfold. It was at that point that I noticed that the Hyuuga girl from earlier was sitting next to me. She let out another of those cute hiccup-like gasps when she realized I was looking at her. Now, I know I can be rather intimidating at times, but this was one of those moments where it'd do more wrong than right. I needed to take care of it before it got out of hand and worse got to worst. Now was not the time, however.

Mitarashi had discovered the 'You-know-who was here, eating your dango' gig, and she had begun to yell at people, and I figured I'd take my chances during the second exam to ask that Hyuuga girl some questions, opting to smoothly hide myself among the crowd of panicked genin that was trying to escape the wrath of Mitarashi Anko.

God, I love it when a plan comes together, and even more when it does in the spur of the moment. Makes me feel good about myself, it takes off some of the edge of my doubts and regrets. I think of it as a way to brighten my conscience, to reduce the guilt I have no use for. It works, most of the time. I couldn't suppress a grin as that Morino fellow yelled that everyone who had opted to run away from Mitarashi was to come back to get briefed on the next exam.

I made a quick headcount of how many teams of how many hidden villages were left in the competition. I was surprised to note that there were more teams left than I had initially predicted. Six teams from Konoha, one team from Suna, three teams from Ame, one team from Oto, one from Taki, three from Kumo, two from Kusa, and three teams from Kiri. A total of twenty teams. Fifty-seven potential enemies and I was allowed to do as I pleased with them. I smirked. This was going to be good.

* * *

A few hours later, Uchiha, Pinky and I were standing in front of the security fence that separated us from the 'Forest of Death', its official name Training Zone 44. It's usually reserved for Jounin that wish to train their sensory perception and their camouflage abilities, as it is the perfect environment to do so. It's also one of the largest training zones belonging to Konoha, and as such, makes it the perfect choice for the second Chuunin Exam to be hosted at.

Never let it be said that I am misinformed, for I happen to have a lot of data on most of the participating folk stored in my head, and likely more so than that Yakushi guy. That reminds me. Yakushi is a complete moron, but it's more likely he's faking everything about him. I've said it before, but he really is an idiot, he can't even keep that a secret for long. Not to mention Uchiha being an idiot as well. A smart idiot that uses his eyes, but an idiot nonetheless.

Asking for more intelligence on his own teammate, somebody you spend quite a bit of time with, and one you should know quite a bit if that's any indication. Observe the mysterious comrade on your own time if you don't trust him, but you just don't go flapping your big mouth off to everyone else and make me a focus of interest in the process. Pinky… I don't even want to get started on her, though she seems to have gathered a bit of resolve during the first test.

Bah. Not like it'll do her a fat load of good in the long run.

I didn't even have to think twice about signing the stupid piece of paper that asked for my consent that I agreed to the fact that I could be killed during the exam. I killed some time by observing some of the competition. In other words, the shinobi that had the potential to hamper my efforts to advance through the ranks.

That Gaara of the Sand Waterfall guy was looking as bored as always with his arms folded and that humongous gourd which carried a faint smell of blood on his back, but he was spilling his killing intent in minute amounts. Not enough to have any obvious outward effect, but it did its job of keeping most people away from him. Those who didn't respond to the intimidation tactics… either couldn't sense the subtle signs of aggression or they chose not to let it get to them, for whatever reasons they had on their mind. Foolish lot… You simply do not live long when you remain ignorant of the powers and the burdens that are placed upon those who are hosts to the kin of demons.

Rabies Infected-Snail Guy was flashing his teeth at everyone who made the mistake of coming near him. His inability to properly utilise chakra… and his public giddiness were positively contagious, I didn't even dare think of where he'd possibly managed to find his fashion sense. Ignoring that for the time being, while those two factors made him far less of an obvious threat, they also allowed him a trump card most other ninja would likely neglect upon. The ability to keep your strengths and weaknesses to yourself. Of course, it all depended on just how much his opponents misjudged his true capabilities. I wasn't going to do that in any case. It doesn't really suit my style to underestimate. As I directed my gaze upwards to the skies, an ominous feeling of foreboding began to well up in my chest, which was ruthlessly squashed as soon as it appeared.

'_It's not like a highly dangerous missing nin decides to flick a monkey wrench by showing up with a couple of strong subordinates and 'throw a party' that sends Konoha into disarray, is it?'_ I mused, but the humour didn't really reach my inner voice.

'_**You know, that random thought was oddly enough too specific to be untrue.**_' Kyuubi quipped, in an attempt to improve my steadily worsening mood.

'_I – Huh… you're right. Kami, I really need to stop doing that… throwing stray, unnecessary thoughts like that, that is… and we really need to get you a proper name, now that I think about it. 'Kyuubi' doesn't really make a fitting name for someone as… resourceful… as you are, don't you think?_' I offered, genuine feelings that couldn't be described with words having prompted that remark, although I could tell that those feelings were somehow rooted in the emotional breakdown I had when I was ten years old, when for the first time I realized that I no longer had the 'right' to call myself Uzumaki Naruto. It had been a harsh and uncompromising revelation for me; having no longer something to call myself.

Konoha had made it positively clear that they didn't want me, and eventually it came to be that I didn't want Konoha as it was either. I discarded the name that connected me to Konoha, I didn't need it anymore. I no longer had a name to remind me of my past, but I was still standing in the middle of a world that was nothing but hostile to me.

There was no name to call me by any longer, nothing to describe who I was, for there was not a single thing left that I could possibly relate to, I had been banished from the one place that I had considered my one and true home. Things like worrying about the flavour of your next bowl of ramen no longer mattered to me; soon my mind operated only under one principle, and that was to survive.

I no longer had a place among civilisation as I knew it at the time. Alas, I soon learned that the best way to make a name for myself, to carve an honest legend in the foundations of the world, was to have others make one for me. I had witnessed a solar eclipse while I still lived in Konoha as a child, and the memories of that event had given me a very worthy moniker for official business as a standalone shinobi, but I had need for a civilian name as well.

I had decided on the words 'Dragon', 'Twister', and 'Time of Death' approximately two months, three weeks, four days, fifteen hours, twenty-seven minutes and forty-four seconds ago. The ability to accurately count the time in this way has always been one of my strong points, and as a result you'll almost never catch me running late for, well, just about anything. It doesn't have something to do with a special bloodline-based ability or something. Nope. I just have a really accurate biological clock ticking away in my brain. And it's dead useful at times.

It's also extremely funny how my chosen alias, 'Shiki' could also come to hold the meaning of 'Morale', just when I'm on a solo mission to challenge the current political clique of Konoha, wouldn't you think?

'_**Teehee… You really know how to flatter someone, despite that mask you put on most of the time.**_' Kyuubi joked, though she didn't appear to take me up on the offer that I'd given her. '_**But you really need to take a deep breath once in a while; otherwise you'll end up choking on your… impulses.**_' Despite her light tone of voice, I knew that she was completely serious with that second remark.

After spending fifteen years with her sealed up inside me, and of those fifteen years I spent roughly nine during which I had 'regular' contact with her. I knew her enough to know when she was serious about something and when she wasn't. As a result, reading ordinary people in the subtle phenomena known as emotional triggers and responses has become almost too easy for me, wholly and completely thanks to the ever-enigmatic fox, for her unexplained personality quirk of dropping and raising the seriousness on nothing more than a whim, sometimes several times in a single topic of conversation, seemed to have had its benefits.

'_I'll trust you to tell me when it's time to breathe, seeing that I still cannot seem to do that all by myself. I'm really a big baby when it comes to that, wouldn't you say?_' I quipped, scratching the back of my head in playful embarrassment.

At this point we were told to go to our designated gate and wait for the signal. I told Kyuubi that we'd have to finish our conversation another time, and an excited smirk etched itself on my face as I thought about the challenges that were lying ahead. I fidgeted a bit with the thick layer of gauze strapped around the entirety of my prosthetic arm, inadvertently wrapping it even tighter around the metal, earning me a funny look from Uchiha.

Realizing that I could milk this out a bit more, I moved my still flesh and blood hand underneath the intrinsically decorated piece of cloth resembling a cape draped around my shoulders and began to massage the area where flesh and bone stopped and metal began. This action did not go unnoticed by Uchiha, who narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he threw a glance in my direction. Pinky noticed as well, but she didn't seem to realize the hidden meaning behind the strange gesture.

A faint smile made its way on my face as Uchiha tried to get me to talk in his ever predictably arrogant way of… intermingling with people. The attempts at trying to have me run my mouth, as pathetic as it was, failed miserably. He didn't seem to have a grasp at the finer aspects of society, such as when you don't ask something nicely from an equal or a superior, well, things tend to happen to you. Bad things.

The noise of a gong rang through the air, and I had no doubts as to what it meant when the gate in front of us sprang open, allowing us access to the Forest and the chance to receive a promotion to the next exam.

I felt like nothing could ruin my day as a sudden rush of blood coursed through my brain, carrying with it a strong concentration of adrenaline, creating an artificial high that affected my sense of reason. The trace of a smile escalated into a full blown grin that almost threatened to split my face in half as I rushed into the obscurity of the Forest of Death, my two teammates following closely behind. This was definitely going to be good, indeed. Kyuubi agreed with me, albeit a bit half-heartedly, as she idly noted the thirst for blood within me growing stronger and stronger with every second that passed. She mused that the ambient atmosphere of the Forest probably had something to do with it.

I didn't care.

I loved every second of the time I spent in the Forest of Death.

* * *

Five days' worth of time went by in what looked like a manner of minutes to me; one of nature's unexplained quirks that came to bite me in the ass.

Too bad nobody else seemed to share the unrequited joy I experienced when the five days we were allowed to stay in the forest were over, and I can't say I felt the same when reality had caught up with me. I had just come back to my senses and I learned of what had happened when I was under the weather, when I slipped and said something I shouldn't have said. I said something in the presence of someone I shouldn't have said such a thing in the first place.

The Sandaime Hokage, while a kind and gentle man in nature, was uncharacteristically incensed at my remark.

All I could do was groan, slap myself on the head, and wait for the verdict to come.

Karma can be such a bitch.


	9. Forest of Piggyback, part one

Disclaimer: Do not own, otherwise I would've seen to it that Naruto as a kid dominated the bijuu inside him. Oh wait, that's what I did in this fanfic. Oops. Have to try again.

Don't own, otherwise I'd have seen to it that Sasuke died alongside the rest of the Uchiha clan save Itachi. Madara can rot in hell for all I care. Tobi, I wouldn't have minded really, if he wasn't just a guise. He was a good boy. May he rest in peace.

* * *

Not long after the three of us… wait. Since when have I begun to refer to the team as 'us'? They're not worthy of the respect coming with that distinction yet, and I doubt that the time that they will be anytime soon. No, there definitely is not an 'us', despite our poor excuse of a sensei's thoughts on comradeship and such. The only reason I put up with the three of them is because of my cover. When the time comes… I'll enjoy killing them.

Well, barely after I, Uchiha and Pinky… now, that's better. The three of us had rushed into the forest and stopped to pull a breather, or rather _they_ did, and the members of team seven were ambushed by a single Amegakure shinobi. Or rather, I was, seeing that their senses weren't as honed as mine.

I had just removed myself from their presence to take a piss when I sensed the misguided idiot trying to sneak up on me. Of course, he was just a genin, so his stealth skills weren't all that great, but trying to take on a three man cell all by yourself is just asking for them to assist in your premature death. A fact I made crystal when I spun around and landed a chakra-enhanced uppercut on his jaw which sent him flying straight into a low-hanging tree branch. He would never make the fatal mistake of trying to attack one of the demon hosts ever again. The gnarled tree branch that was sticking out of his chest made sure of it.

Sadly, he didn't have the scroll on him. I ruthlessly suppressed the urge to rip the son of a bitch's carcass to pieces, instead choosing to create a lone shadow clone, silently ordering it to tail Uchiha and Pinky and make sure they didn't do anything too stupid while I would be away on a hunt for scrolls.

Four hours and spot on three minutes had passed, and in the meantime I had managed to track down and obliterate the teammates of the unfortunate Amegakure Nin, in addition to two other teams, one from Kirigakure and one from Kusagakure, and taken their scrolls.

I had just put the last scroll away when I learned that my replacement clone had been separated from the others and had been taken out of commission by a Kusa nin who behaved rather like a snake, but not before he created twenty or so other clones to serve as a distraction while he quickly carved and activated a reverse summoning seal in the trunk of the tree they were fighting on, immediately placing me in a fortunate position to fight.

A nifty trick I have designed through a combination of my aptitude with seals and the enormous source of information sealed within me. I felt her appreciation for that compliment filter through the seal, but I waved it off; I hadn't had anything to do with the fact that she had somehow retained most of the knowledge of the 'experiments' conducted by the Sage of Six Paths in ancient times.

Somehow the observations the Juubi had made when he was still sealed inside the Sage of Six Paths had survived the birth of the Bijuu, and it seemed that the separated parts themselves could recall them even to this day. Well, I don't really know about the other Bijuu. I can only say that my own tenant does, and it's not exactly fun and games to try and convince a bunch of mentally unstable hosts to tell you their respective tenants' secrets. Not to mention that they're extremely hard to track down anyway, with the entirety of their hidden village backing them up. But I digress.

I couldn't tell whether the snake fucker was male or female; the guy just happened to look too feminine to me and his smell was far too faint, almost on the verge of being nonexistent, for me to find out. Not to mention that this new enemy was easily of upper Jounin class, seeing as he was skilled enough to sense my clone keeping an eye on Uchiha and Pinky. The lack of worthy opponents had dulled my excitement somewhat, but it had returned on full blast now that I could vent some of my frustrations on the piece of shit trying to disrupt my plans.

Thankfully, he seemed a little preoccupied with trying to cut down the large number of clones that were harassing him from every possible angle; otherwise he would have noticed that the wind had changed. He realized his mistake when I made my presence known.

"Oi, tapeworm, eat this! Fūton: Shinkū Daigyoku!"

His eyes widened when he took in the sphere of compressed air hurtling towards him and he tried to dodge, successfully avoiding the initial attack but he was caught up in the backlash as his wrist accidently came into contact with the middle ring. The result was that he was sent crashing through a couple of trees before coming to a painful stop at the forest floor.

I didn't waste any time in pressing the assault, but was caught off guard when there was no groaning Kusa nin to be found. I found out where he was when a couple of kunai came whizzing at me from the underbrush to my right. It took minimal effort in dodging them, as I managed to even grab one in midflight with ease before flicking it back at the snake bastard.

"Hahahahahahaha! So sloppy! So predictable…! Come on, you useless sack of meat! Surely you can do better than that!" I taunted him as I removed the layer of gauze that was covering my metal arm, dodging another set of kunai with practiced ease in the process.

'_I could use a little help here. Pattern: Hand of the Homunculi, Hand of the Revenant; synchronisation level: zero-five per mille.' _I thought, broadcasting my thoughts loudly enough for Kyuubi to hear them.

_**I'm working on it, chief. Just tell me when you're ready.**__' _She said in response.

'_Ready_.' I left it at that, waiting as my metal arm let out a loud groaning noise as both my own and Kyuubi's chakra began to blend and 'mutate' the metal limb, watching carefully for the changes to finish forming. It was highly necessary that I do so, as the metal is at its most vulnerable when subjected to the 'Blender', as I'd begun to refer to the technique.

I guess a brief explanation is in order. The 'Pattern' part is a reference to the type of jutsu. In this case, it's nothing more than basic chakra manipulation, except for the fact that it comes with a twist. Instead of moulding my own chakra and utilising it directly against my opponent through elemental recomposition, I and Kyuubi have come up with several ways of manipulating the form of energy beyond the commonly known ways. Of course, you need to be a Host to even begin on things of such a scale.

Erm, right. '_Hand of the Homunculi_' is an obvious reference to my prosthetic arm. '_Hand of the Revenant_' is a little trickier to guess, but it entails the end form my arm will assume. '_Synchronisation level_' refers to the particular degree of fusion of sorts. In other words, Kyuubi and I are going to temporarily merge our left 'hands'.

Since the Kyuubi is essentially nothing more than a huge mass of chakra given physical form and with a sentient mind behind it, and my arm is capable of doing all kinds of stuff with human chakra, among which are storing, channelling and amplifying, you can imagine what happens when you add the tiniest part of a Bijuu's chakra to it; a chakra with properties far beyond the human variant.

Something beyond man's wildest imaginations, that's what. Anyhow, the degree of merging in this case is too small to have any long-lasting effect on our constitution. Not to mention that there's several different forms to choose from if the merging is initiated.

In order from light to heavy in lethality, they are the _Hand of the Assassin_, which is my standard form, the _Hand of the Oni_, the _Hand of the Revenant_, and lastly, the _Hand of the Death God_. Now, they're mostly just symbolic names, but it's unwise to underestimate their potential. Even the Hand of the Assassin is highly versatile, seeing that it was that particular form which I'd used – and miserably failed would be the more historically accurate term to use – to kill Zabuza.

Sadly, there was no way I could get the drop on this guy as I had done with Zabuza, now as I've already revealed the true extent of my abilities. Performing a jutsu of at least A-rank more or less does that to you. That is why I initiated the _Hand of the Revenant_.

I could feel the spontaneous increase in chakra flow from the seal on my hara into my left arm, which began to twist and morph into a far more deadly and vicious shape. While before it was just an ordinary silvery metal construct in the shape and form of a normal human arm, albeit slightly altered to suit my needs, now it just looked _tainted_, for a lack of a better word.

Jagged and serrated spikes ran across its length in a seemingly random pattern, and the colour had changed from dull gray to deep reddish brown, the colour of dried blood and rust. The fingers had morphed into gnarled claws that from careful experimentation I knew to be potent enough to cleanly cut and pierce solid granite.

All in all it looked dangerous, as that was what it was intended for. I let out a dark chuckle at the sight of my malformed metal arm as I raked the clawed appendage across the bark of a tree to test it, cutting deeply into the wood. A sudden rush of bloodlust clouded my mind, and I coated the small clearing with an staggering amount of killing intent, cackling madly at the prospect of tearing someone limb from limb, to revel in their fear as I slashed open the abdomen and removed their intestines.

'_**Ping!**_ _**Synchronisation complete**_. _**Do you need anything else?**_' Kyuubi informed me in a distant yet soft and warm voice, snapping me back from my brief lapse in rage. Her voice reminded me of how a certain personal secretary should be like. I've never been more grateful that she was sealed within me before this moment. Actually, she'd just trumped every other time I'd said 'thank you' to her. There's only so much you can thank someone for, but this was definitely such a moment where you go on your knees and loudly proclaim your eternal love or such.

Ironically those very two words made me swallow deeply as bile rose up in my throat. I'd remembered something that wasn't meant for anyone's eyes to see, be they my worst enemy or otherwise. I have no doubt it will come and haunt my dreams. An older – Ugh, no way I'm going to finish that thought.

'_No thanks, I'm fine for now. Please remain focused, I might have need of your expert guiding hand to keep me sane long enough to finish this farce of a fight. Now, I'm going to kill some snakes. Don't expect me to come home in time for dinner.' _I finished with a rather lame attempt at humour, at least in my eyes, seeing that Kyuubi definitely thought that my comment was worthwhile, if the raucous laughter I heard from the recesses of my mind was any indication.

* * *

A/N:

And there we are. Another, albeit short update for your enjoyment. This is the first 'issue' that will detail the events of the Second Exam. Shinkū Daigyoku, Vacuum Great Sphere, that's one of Danzou's jutsu, which, in my story, was described in a scroll that Shiki covertly took ownership of during the time he spent running around in Konoha. I figured that if they have a scroll lying around with several high-jounin level techniques, this wouldn't be much of a problem. Especially when it comes to Danzou the war hawk, who collects jutsu on a habit. Just a vibe I get from the man.

What? You'd expect me to have Shiki (Naruto) use the Rasengan or any of its variants on Hebi-teme?

Get real. He's been missing for eight years, travelling around the world. Even Jiraiya with his network would have had a hard time tracking him down, especially when Shiki (Naruto) doesn't stick around for longer than he needs to, unlike Tsunade with her chronic gambling habits. Not to mention that the Toad Sennin seems to lose any and all interest in prior activities when he even senses so much as a naked female in the area. That reminds me... _Boobies...!_

Err, right. With this update I've finally released the arm's last hidden trick. None of you ever wondered what would happen if you channel Bijuu chakra through chakra conductive metal? There's your cue.

Some specifics on the four forms of the arm. Before Shiki (Naruto) activates one of the three 'upgrades', he typically removes the gauze covering his arm because of several reasons, the most prominent being that the chakra flooding through the arm makes the construct so unstable that there is the danger that the gauze permanently 'grows' into the metal. Compare it to stitches being left alone for too long after the injury is long healed.

_Hand of the Assassin_: Base form. Dull gray in colour, has a fifteen inch blade housed in a storage seal ready to be released at a moment's notice. It is usually covered by a thick layer of gauze to hide the metallic sheen. As it is the base form, there is only a slight drain in chakra, and it can be maintained indefinitely. If Shiki (Naruto) is completely out of chakra, which in itself is a truly rare occasion, the arm automatically detaches itself from where it is attached.

_Hand of the Oni_: Second form. Yellowish brown in colour, with light brown kanji with the meaning 'Raging mountain wind' serving as decoration. Upon activation the knuckles grow studs that function the same way a knuckleduster would. For those of you that read the Inheritance Cycle, think Ascûdgamln. The drain is significantly greater than in the arm's base form, but Shiki (Naruto) can maintain it for at least several hours with minimal input from the Kyuubi.

_Hand of the Revenant_: Third form. Reddish brown in colour, with jagged and serrated black spikes running across the arm's length. They are mainly there for intimidation purposes, but every once in a while Shiki (Naruto) will use them as a method of torture if he so desires. The fingers become bony claws capable of gouging solid granite. Heavily draining chakra from its user, Shiki (Naruto) has to rely on a continuous supply of Kyuubi's chakra to maintain it.

_Hand of the Death God_: Fourth and final form. Midnight black in colour, with faint gray stripes and swirls serving as decoration. The only form that is without a permanent physical state. As it does not have a physical form, it can pass through solid matter with ease. Despite its permanent intangibility, it can grasp physical matter, allowing the user to penetrate even the heaviest of defences before tearing the enemy apart with literally his 'bare hand'. It's obviously the strongest and most terrifying form for a reason, and it drains chakra at an insane rate, even for a Jinchūriki. As such he can barely maintain it for ten minutes, even with the entire chakra basin the Kyuubi can offer him.

As always, R&R is greatly appreciated! Oh, and before I forget, name suggestions for Kyuubi are just as welcome! Now go and click that button! I know you want to!


	10. Forest of Piggyback, part two

Don't own Naruto. 'nuff said.

* * *

Unlike anger, rage isn't an emotion. It's a state of mind, and the primary reason as to why it slips through emotion suppressing techniques with little to no trouble at all. It brings us to where we are now.

Despite having activated the _Hand of the Revenant_ form of my arm and trashing the snake bastard around for a good amount of time, he just stubbornly refused to roll over and die like the inhuman mongrel he was. At this point, I was simply starting to get bored of endlessly 'killing' mud clones, snake summons and replacement logs, but no matter what I did it wasn't enough to extract the finishing blow. Kyuubi was at as much of a loss at his persistence as I was, and that was saying something, because between the two of us, she was the one that was actually thinking things through.

If you can call 'thinking things through' shouting morbid obscenities while doing a reasonably accurate Maito Gai in one of his Springtime of Youth garble-speak impression, then she was, in every sense of the term, doing just that.

On top of all that, his infernal snickering form of laughter was helping little, and doubtlessly it would have pissed me off if I hadn't already been under the ambient bloodlust that seemed to permeate the atmosphere of the forest. Unfortunately, my opponent had chosen the brief pause in my relentless pursuit to disappear from my senses completely.

I blinked in surprise, before the dire reality of the situation caught up with my befuddled mind. Kyuubi had stopped in mid-rant and was just as stupefied as I was. If it had been under different circumstances, I probably would have chuckled at her expression, but I wasn't really in the mood to appreciate the finer aspects of humour right now.

"SPAWN OF TUBEWORM FECES!" I howled out after him, enraged by his getaway. I did the first thing I could to vent my fury, smashing my transformed hand into the first tree within reach, violently shredding the wood to scraps. Baring my frighteningly sharp and pointed teeth to the world, I let out a feral bellow, which had been mostly aimed at myself for the stupidity of allowing him to escape. I noticed a faint shimmer of red starting to envelop me, but I didn't care, instead opting to contemplate on how I could get some decent satisfaction out of some of the chuunin hopefuls instead.

Slowly carving them up and slowly removing their intestines with a dull spoon seemed like a good idea to me. The only problem with that approach was that I didn't have one on my person. I settled on the next best thing, which was to demolish several more trees in what could only be described as a human-sized demonic entity throwing a hissy fit. Unfortunately, all it did was waste chakra without proper cause. Something that would come to bite me in the ass later on.

It was in this state of mind that the proctor of the second exam found me, just as I brought down another tree. If it hadn't been for the faint aroma of dango I absently discerned from her particular fragrances of snake, blood and a mixture of honey and vanilla commonly associated with arousal of the sexual sort, I probably would have torn her head off before she even noticed my presence. She smelled too much like a snake for me to tell the difference between her and the ass-fucker guy from earlier, which I only now realized to be Orochimaru of the Sannin, listed in the universal bingo book as the Shiroi Hebi - The White Snake.

As it was, I wasn't in the most reasonable state of mind right now, and I came very close to removing the upper part of her face in one frenzied swipe, forcing her on the defensive immediately. She had to use a paralysis technique to stop me from actually killing her on more than one occasion, but it didn't last long under my increasingly worsening aggression, and she was slowly but surely backed into a corner.

If it weren't for the fact that Kyuubi had momentarily taken control over my main motor functions when Mitarashi bumped her backside against a tree trunk, I would have succeeded in my rage-filled desire and objective to brutally kill the first person I happened to run into. It wouldn't have been the actual target of my scorn, but it was a kill regardless. Luckily for her, the possibility of I ramming a spiked appendage through the back of her mouth was averted by none other than an actual 'demon' that attacked Konohagakure fifteen years ago.

I struggled to break free from the oppressive body bind that had been forced on my by my tenant, but failed to move my arm any further than the tiniest inch towards a terrified Mitarashi Anko.

_**Eno**__**ugh**_,_** Naruto**_. _**You're making the cloak form**_._** She's not an enemy to our plans**_…_** yet**_.' Kyuubi reprimanded me, using my first and true name to 'slap' me from my stupor. The irony of the situation was obvious only to those who knew the truth about ''ickle Shiki's real face', and so the joke was lost on Mitarashi as I let out a hearty chuckle in amusement. Kyuubi had released me from the bind as soon as she realized I had calmed down enough to hold a civil conversation without removing their entrails because of a snippy remark.

"You're here to kill that snake, aren't ya?" I rhetorically asked, already knowing the answer, forcing my arm to regress to its standard form while the faint red aura of chakra faded away of its own volition. It was no big secret that Anko Mitarashi was Orochimaru's former apprentice and plaything, even with her doing as much as she possibly could to hide that particularly horrible past. She wanted to forget it all happened in the first place, but simply wasn't allowed to, for circumstances beyond her control. I felt a twinge of pity for the tokubetsu jounin / ANBU torture expert, but ignored it in favour for more pressing matters.

"Damn right, gaki. Now if you'd tell me where he went, I can finally mount his head on the wall of the Hokage's office, where it belongs. I might just ignore the fact that you are more than you appear to be, but only if you spill the beans." She replied, a little hurriedly.

I was about to answer when she grimaced and clutched her shoulder, obviously in nerve-wracking pain. Since there was no trace of blood on her person, I could come up with only one explanation for the sudden distraction.

Some sort of seal.

I took a senbon needle from my weapons pouch and, after sliding her hitae-ate a little higher on her head, I softly tapped a pressure point on her forehead with it, causing her to slump to the ground unconscious. I was thankful that she didn't wear anything more than just a thin fishnet shirt, because no matter what that seal was intended for, it needed to be given a serious examination if it was hurting its recipient.

Scratch the remark about it being merely a mundane seal. It was an honest to god cursed seal in the shape of three tomoe, designed primarily to erode the mind and enslave the body for some obscure and no doubt unparalleled nefarious reason. At this point in my life, I thought that I was a sadistic son of a bitch, but it was obvious that there was still a lot for me to learn to be worthy of the 'demon' moniker, as my own forms of wrath simply couldn't even hope to compare against the remorseless cruelty of the former Sannin, but I wasn't going to go running off to whatever backwater place the snake paedophile had made his rape-nest just for a 101 crash course in 'How to treat all those around you like something lower than the filthiest and most useless piece of trash imaginable', no thanks.

I realized that, sadly enough, I wasn't yet skilled enough in the sealing arts to find a foolproof way to permanently remove or suppress the damned thing marring Mitarashi's shoulder, so I had little choice but to leave it in its current state. I briefly considered my options before reminding myself that I had more pressing matters to tend to, and taking her along for the ride would only needlessly slow me down. I wasn't going to let her lie helpless and alone in one of the most inhospitable places in the Land of Fire however, so I created a shadow clone for the sole purpose of dropping her off at the tower in the centre of the Forest, not even bothering to issue any command to my doppelganger as I disappeared from the scene.

'_Thanks for knocking me on the noggin' back there, and, erm… I've been thinking… about an appropriate name for you, so how's red sky sound to you, to keep in line with the 'Blood Rain' thing?_' I offered as I hurried back to my teammates, receiving only a dry chuckle from my tenant in response. '_**You're going to need to try a little harder on this one kiddo, I'm sure you'll find an appropriate name to call me by. You've come up with all those interesting names for your arm and yourself, but you can't come up with a decent one for me? If I hadn't already spent so much time with you and didn't know any better I'd say you were purposefully trying to insult me.**_' Kyuubi remarked, though her voice held no malice or contempt; she was only stating a fact.

'_Yeah, you're right, gomen. It was a lame attempt, I know._' I agreed, although a bit too morosely for my standards. Kyuubi picked up on my depressed tone and reacted accordingly.

'_**Hey! No need to get all depressed simply because you didn't come up with a fitting name! Sometimes it just takes a bit more time to find the right one for someone, you know! It's not as if you can find it on a moment's notice! Sometimes it takes weeks, even months before you do!**_' She shouted, making my ears ring. It did have the effect she wanted, as I had been snapped out of my sullen mood.

'_Keep it down a couple of octaves, would you? Despite this being merely my 'Mugen Sekai' anything that happens in here affects me all the same out there, remember?_' I retorted, annoyed at the fact that my hearing, the most useful sense to a shinobi, was disabled for an undetermined amount of time.

'_**Err… Oops?**_' She stammered, taken aback at the harsh remark about her unintended mistake.

I let out a frustrated sigh. '_Next time, make sure you think before you try something like that, capiche, Crimson Light?_'

'_**…**_'

'_Oi!_'

'_**Yeah, yeah, spoilsport… Wait… that one didn't sound too bad actually… has a nice, mysterious and esoteric ring to it. Benihikari… Let's take that one!**_' She blurted out all of a sudden, drawing out a groan and a facepalm from me in response. At some times, she was just so unbelievably childish that you had no idea what to do about her, while she was incredibly profound and full of all sorts of wisdom the next minute, you simply took everything she imparted at face value.

It was maddening, if I hadn't already developed an unhealthy amount of quirks and behavioural oddities to cope with her constantly fluctuating behaviour, I might've been as insane as that Rabies Infected Snail Guy. Sorry, Lee Rock. I suppose he deserves a little respect for his perseverance in becoming a full-fledged shinobi, despite his overwhelmingly disabling handicap. I'm not sure I would've ever done the same had it been me.

It's not really fair to call someone names when I'm not actually face-to-face with the kid, but you have to admit that he's _weird_, and not in a good way. Sure, he may prove to be a reliable ally against a mutual foe 'n all, but hell, that's hardly relevant when he drives you completely over the hedge, isn't it?

…

Alright, alright... Lets go back to where we left off. Right, I was on my way to my poor excuses of shinobi and kunoichi 'team mates'. I know why I have to put up with the pathetic ass wipes, but it hardly makes it any easier to keep my cool and ignore them in favour of maiming them with a single piece of ordinary writing paper. Preferably an enquiry slip about the reason why one would become a shinobi. 'To protect my home, my family, my friends and everyone else I care about' is a fairly good motivation, but so is 'to butcher the ass-fuckers that forcibly banished me from my home, destroyed most of my rare material possessions, and more of such things in the most painful and slowest ways', right?

For those who fit the bill about the prior category, go screw yourselves before you roll over to die in some lowly gutter. You're not worth my time to be talking to me. Look, I have nothing against the concept of obtaining power for the sole reason of protecting the people you care about, be it love, friendship, camaraderie or otherwise, but it can only take you so far.

I shall be honest here. Despite everything that has happened to me in the past, I still _love_ Konohagakure no Sato, with all my being. But the image within my soul, within my heart, within my undying spirit, it is not the same as the one I see in front of me. Too long has the village suffered from incompetence, greed, cruelty, fear of the unknown, fear of the 'wild', the uncontrollable side of natural order of things. But most of all, Konoha has suffered from the influence of the tendrils of corrupting darkness that creep upwards from the village's shadows. It keeps the village stagnant. Adhering to tradition is a good thing, but only so when it has no alternative for a potential improvement.

This clingy attachment to tradition and custom has to stop. It MUST stop, because there is no question of what will happen, of what could possibly be done for the betterment of Konohagakure no Sato otherwise.

I intend to follow through and make truth of my idealized image of Konoha, no matter what the cost may be. For that truth to become reality, I need to find the core of the darkness, for there is no chance that a young sapling is allowed to flourish and grow so long as the rotten and decayed heart of the previous giant is able to taint the new life as well.

'_From the ashes and the dust of the old world, a new order shall rise, one greater than before. And then we… we will truly know peace. There is only one question that merits the value of thought; how long will it come to last this time around before someone decides to muck it up?_'

'_**Oh shush… You're far too tense, aibo, and it's not helping any, so... you need to unwind just… a little…**_' Her voice trailed off, but I wasn't going to fall for that particular trick any more. I've had more than my fair share of similar attempts made by her to know she was deliberately trying to turn me on.

'_You've tried that one so many times it isn't going to work on me any more, you know… putting that aside, we're still in this backwater forest, and with both the Ichibi Jinch__ū__riki and the Shiroi Hebi lounging around the place, I really can't afford to be distracted right now. I might take you up on your offer when we're in the clear, though._' I offered, not entirely sure whether I would actually do it. Bah, forget it, I had made a promise, and a real man, despite the fact I'm only fifteen and wasn't to call myself as such yet, keeps true to his promises.

'_**Thank you… Shiki.**_' She whispered, appreciation and a hint of arousal slightly colouring her voice at the prospect of finally consummating our relationship, something that I knew that she desired above all else, and I felt a slight pang of conscience at having to reject her advances for yet another time.

I was snapped out of my musings by loud, panicked voices yelling for something, '_**or someone**_', Benihikari corrected me, to stop. I decided that just taking a look wouldn't hurt, so I cautiously made my way to the direction the voices came from.

I almost regretted my decision when a large spout of blood and other bodily fluids was sent my way, which I barely evaded from coming into contact with my clothes. I would've hard a tough time getting the smell out of the fabric if the putrid mixture of liquids had dried up while my clothes were drenched in the stuff. I silently spawned a trio of shadow clones to find and haul Uchiha and Pinky to a safe area.

"Come out… Tatsumaki! Mother demands to taste your blood!" I held little doubts as to whose voice that was. I glared at the stoic Host of the Ichibi standing across the clearing as I slowly stepped into view.

"My… you're not exactly right in the head, are you… Tanuki-san?" I flippantly remarked, smirking as the Ichibi Jinchūriki's teammates paled considerably. The kunoichi and the Kabuki guy briefly glanced at each other, seemingly coming to an unspoken agreement that moving away from the impending crossfire was the best action they could take right now.

I could sense Kiba and his teammates desperately trying to hide from being discovered by the Suna nins, and ignored them in favour for the bigger fish standing about twenty five feet away from me. The only warning I received before being nearly incarcerated and crushed into pulp inside a large cocoon-like mass of sand was that he pointed his hand at me, obviously a prerequisite to using his unique type of jutsu. I was unable to completely escape the sand, however, as I evaded a split second too late. The sand had gotten a fairly decent hold on my prosthetic arm, and was now steadily progressing to my shoulder. '_Shit! This can't be good…_'

My Jinchūriki opponent apparently found that taking my arm out of commission would be a more commendable target, and balled his hand into a fist.

"Sabaku Sōsō!"

Making a valid assumption as to what that technique would do, I briefly frowned in annoyance before focusing a brief surge of chakra through my metal arm, blasting it free from the dense mass that was weighing it down, allowing me to pull it loose from the cocoon of sand before it could crush the fake limb beyond restoration.

"Now, now, don't get hasty, Tanuki-san…" I lightly reprimanded my opponent, "I have a proposition for you, one that you'll definitely like." I paused briefly for dramatic effect. "See, I happen to have some knowledge of sealing techniques, and I was wondering if I could be allowed to take a look at the one that keeps Mr. Tanuki in there…" I trailed off, hoping that the mentally unstable host would take the bait. '_This better work, 'cause if it doesn't, it's going to be brutal. Something I do not want to happen._'

It was not to be, however. The brief flicker of confusion in his eyes was snuffed out and replaced by something I'd rather not hoped to have seen.

"You will prove my existence!"

_Crap_.

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A/N:

Yes, crap indeed.

As for the reason Shiki was so quick to get his arm loose from the Sabaku Kyū, it's simple, really. He does not know whether the material that his arm is made of is dense enough to resist being crushed into metal powder. Sabaku Sōsō is powerful enough to disintegrate human bones, the Kekkei Genkai abilities of the Kaguya clan not taken into account here.

About Anko's cursed seal of heaven prototype and Naruto's inability to come up with a proper solution, therein lies one simple fact: not even the Sandaime Hokage (and by proxy Jiraiya) was able to successfully suppress it. So how could Naruto ever hope to do so without killing her? Flooding the seal with Kyuubi's chakra might work, but there's too many unknown variables that come with that particular approach, which is why he abstains from doing anything rash.

Orochimaru got away, but only with the skin of his teeth, so to speak. He was being thrashed around with little room for counterattacking by at least fifteen clones coming at him from random directions, so he had to rely on purely evasive action. (I recall the conversation between Kakashi and Orochimaru after Sasuke's curse mark was sealed, with that 'I can take you down, even if I die in the process' thing. Scratch the 'If I die' part and multiply Kakashi's combat ability by a factor of ten, it's fairly certain that Orochimaru receives an ass-whooping of epic proportions). It has also thrown a serious monkey-wrench in the old snake pedo's plans to obtain the Sharingan and destroy Konoha.

With that said, I don't mean to imply that Naruto is ten times more powerful than Kakashi, his Jinchūriki status not taken into account. It means that for every clone (with Naruto's exact skill level, which is more or less parallel to Kakashi's) the overall chance of kicking snake-arse increases.

R&R is welcome, as always!

Blightwalker out.


	11. Forest of Piggyback, part three

Disclaimer: I'm kind of starting to feel annoyed by having to do this for the umpteenth time… *sigh* Ah well… Here goes… Don't own nothin' 'bout Naruto.

* * *

Oftentimes I question myself, mostly about my _rightful_ place in the world. Knowing that I should never have lived to see the light of another day many times in the past, was it right for me to live while others would die? Was it right for me to steal their light and final breath so that I could live on, clinging desperately to this life, this tiny, lonesome shell of sentience?

My brother host, my undesired enemy, gazing at me with eyes that blaze with madness, is laughing mockingly as he rants on how he would appease his 'mother' with the blood of his enemies, a list which at the moment consists of only one person.

I ruthlessly squash the urge to bite back with a snappish remark, knowing it would only provoke him further. I cannot help but feel awkwardly lucky, knowing that his eyes hold in them the twisted form of truth mine could have held.

The similarities between us are unmistakable. The two of us had been marked at birth. Touched, so to speak, by a demonic being consisting solely of malevolent chakra that had been split into nine separate entities centuries ago.

Yet, here we stand, about to fight one another for each our own reasons. For him, it was to confirm his value of truth, his broken sense of pride and worth torn further apart by apathy and the discriminating eyes of the many. It is his wish to leave his signature in the earth and the water, the air and the memories of the people to ascertain his place among the annals of history.

To me, it was merely a matter of leaving a mark on the world before I died a nameless death. Unlike my brother host standing a few feet away from me, I hold no illusions about the fact I never will become more than a simple string of letters engraved on a monument honouring the dead. Those bastards had made sure of it the moment they ran me down the central road of the village.

I rolled my eyes at another vague statement that involved my brother's so called mother figure and its desire to consume my blood. Seriously, the situation had so many similarities to a vague, random vampire parody flick that it wasn't even remotely funny. It did little to assuage my worsening mood. By now I had already given up on the possibility that I could just walk away from this impasse without injury and I quickly focused my attention back to my opponent.

A vaguely amused smirk formed on my face as I folded my arms in the same manner as my brother host standing halfway the clearing across of me. Playing games with the minds of your foes is a great way to get them to make errors in judgement, which often lead to crucial mistakes in the heat of combat.

"Well… aren't you going to live up to your word?" I taunted, "After all, one such as _us_ must prove his legitimacy in existence, am I right, Tanuki-san?"

The confident smirk faded when I noticed he made no visible signs of falling for my provocation. I couldn't help but sweatdrop at my brother host's blank expression. Underneath that stoic bravado, I knew his anger was roiling, fuelled by the demonic entity he housed.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked, feeling some semi-genuine concern for my brother host's mental state. "You don't look like you're doing all that well up in there. It makes me wonder how long you haven't had a night's sleep… The insomnia must've done quite a number on you…" I brought my hand to the side of my head and tapped my temple a couple of times to drive the point home.

This was my first mistake. I probably should have refrained from provoking my foes, the obvious reason being that my previously unresponsive opponent unexpectedly shot into motion, already having formed several hand seals before I could even so much move a finger in response. This was my second mistake. I underestimated his particular aptitudes. Clearly he wasn't as affected by his long standing lack of mental rest as I had anticipated.

My third mistake was a lack of intel on my potential rivals' particular abilities beyond the generic 'oh, he can do this' sort of thing. As a result of that carelessness, I didn't know he could be that fast with his hands. Given the fact his abilities allowed him a somewhat high grade of defence, I figured he wouldn't really need to rely on speed for offense. I guess I was a bit of an idiot on that account and would have taken several moments to berate myself if the ground beneath me hadn't started to shift and the gentle breeze hadn't begun to flow in a completely different direction.

"Die, Tatsumaki! Your blood will appease Mother and make me feel alive!" He shouted. I felt my eyebrow twitch in annoyance. Was this guy incapable of spouting anything which did not refer to either blood in general, his eschewed views of maternal figures or his shattered perception of himself?

My irritation soon vanished as the tremors subsided and the typical calm before the storm occurred. It was only barely that I managed to avoid ending up a dead sack of flesh by strafing sideward to my right, dodging the spiral of sand emerging from my previous position on the ground. I switched off most rational thought processes, as clearly this was one of those times to let the fists speak, not the brain.

"Fuck this… I'm getting royally pissed by this whackjob… It's high time somebody put him back in his place. Che, getting all high and mighty just 'cause he thinks he's got this invincible plant pot on his back." I spat, before sidestepping another burst of sand directed my way.

"This is going to open your eyes to a whole different level of corporal punishment written with the capital M for mother-fuckin' _wrong_, camel-face!"

His emotionless mask, coupled with an inhuman lack of response pissed me off more than anything else would have at that moment. My self-restraint, already wearing thin, was swept aside in the torrent of fury of the sheer rage I felt of being ignored. Say what you will, but if there is one thing I cannot stand, it is being overlooked or outright dismissed as if I simply did not matter.

"If you want to be that way, have a taste of this! Kokuni Rendan: Ruinous Impact Shards!" I yelled, opting to use an elemental ninjutsu of my own design.

This personally developed technique was comprised of three phases. Being the inventor of it, I held the advantage of being capable of more or less skipping the first stage by combining it with the second stage and performing both simultaneously before moving on to the third and final stage of the jutsu, saving me the critical seconds the step-by-step procedure would no doubt take. An advantage on the battlefield, where death is swift and victory often decided by the fastest.

There is a reason why Jinkūkan ninjutsu and they who practice them are so highly valued; after all, the ones who have the fabrics of time and reality at their hands to bend at will are often the most capricious in both offensive and defensive manoeuvres. But that is neither here nor there.

Calmly forming a series of one-handed seals with my still flesh and blood hand, yet at the same time bent down in a crouch to ram my fake limb deep into the ground, grasping for the largest concentration of minerals I could find before my opponent disintegrated it through elemental manipulation. I unearthed a cylindrical concentration of rock about two feet in size before letting go of it by lieu of throwing it higher in the air, at which point the large 'spider web' of chakra I wove earlier kept it suspended in front of me.

After weaving another string of hand seals, this time to mould a decent amount of chakra in my hands, to the point where my flesh and blood hand started to ache because of the internal strain, I revealed the reason for the compression of so much chakra as I slammed both of my hands into the suspended rock slab, releasing the accumulated chakra in a single instant. The result was that the stone fell apart into numerous fragments of varied sizes which, upon being accelerated by the velocity of the double-handed blow and the subsequent release of chakra, impacted on the intervening sand barrier in less than the span of a second.

The noise made during their disintegration upon impact was nerve-wracking in intensity, in addition to the fact that in some places the sand wall had almost been compromised completely if the rather obvious holes in the 'absolute' defence were any indication. His face slowly turned to my direction, flashing through several expressions as if unable to decide to either mock me for choosing such an ultimately ineffective jutsu or commend me on the fact I'd almost nullified his unbeatable barrier.

"Hehehe… Hahahahahaha! Heeh… you wouldn't suffer from just that with that 'impenetrable' barrier of yours, right?" I sniggered in honest mirth, pointing at something behind him. I would have taken my eyes off him if it were possible, but that would be asking for an awkward death… If I didn't have a nearly impenetrable defence of my own of sorts, courtesy of Benihikari-chan. "I dare you to look behind you… Heheheh… Haahahaha!"

As if in a daze, he turned around, unaware I had taken complete advantage of the moment by silently calling forth a clone in my place and moving to the spot I 'suggested' to my doppelganger. The result was that I was already in place and ready to strike while my opponent scouted his surroundings for whatever it was that was so important that it would interrupt his mother's demands for satisfaction.

It was only because of his own keen senses picking up the fact my loud laughter had quieted that he narrowly missed receiving a metal fist to the nose. It was because of his staunch belief that his sand shield took care of most external threats that he proved unable to evade the incoming fist. It hit him full on the jaw, making him recoil from the transfer of kinetic energy.

While the blow may not have had my full force behind it, it was harder than I would have normally punched someone, and yet, in spite of that, he remained standing, albeit barely, given that he was flailing his arms about madly, desperately trying to stay on his feet.

It went without saying that he failed, landing on his back in an awkward position, his limbs still suspended in the air in a vaguely remote resemblance to a tortoise lying upside down. The awkwardness of the whole thing unexpectedly prompted a hearty chuckle on my part, in particular when he started wriggling around not unlike a spider on a sugar high.

All the while, the gourd strapped to his person did little to help matters. It only served to increase the hilarity of the already humorous happenstance. The sounds of laughter must've broken him out of his rather unorthodox reverie, because he stopped moving and instead rolled over to his side to get a better look at me. I sweat-dropped at his childishly innocent expression. The next thing that happened threw me even further off my rocker, though.

"Neh, nii-san, why's your right eye green and your other eye blue? Your face looks funny, nii-san!" My brother host started to chatter incomprehensible strings of words at this point. I failed to suppress a groan and a face palm, but made sure I didn't hit myself in the face with my artificial hand in lieu of turning out the same way my apparently now mentally regressed brother host did. Amnesia was the most horrible thing anyone could suffer, in my opinion.

"Kid..." I started before realizing that he was paying me less than zero attention, "OI, BRAT! LISTEN WHEN I TALK TO YOU, DAMMIT!"

He cocked his head to the side when he turned his attention back to me. "Nii-san, you're loud... Be quiet..."

I took a few deep breathers to calm down before I did something irreversible, like hitting the poor soul _again_, and making things worse. I was honestly starting to regret my decision to come back to Konohagakure no Sato if things such as this were the result of it.

This train of thought was unceremoniously broken when my brother host sat down and started to hum nursery rhymes while curiously looking around the area, completely oblivious to the fact we were in the middle of a Chuunin examination test. I've lost count of the self-slapping in the face, though I strongly suspect that the past twenty minutes' number of face palms grossly outnumbered the previous fifteen or so years' worth of days' in the past, but the sheer absurdity of the situation proved just too strong to pass off as inconsequential.

It only got fucking worse when his teammates returned from their line of cover, somehow having decided to stick around close enough to know what had transpired, as they immediately rushed down from their hiding spots amongst the trees, to make sure that, strangely enough considering their fear for the juvenile demon host, their teammate and apparently youngest brother was completely peachy, the girl more so than kabuki guy. I rolled my eyes at the unprompted 'IT'S WAR PAINT, DAMN YOU!' in response to a whispered question by their mentally regressed younger brother...

It's official, I now unconditionally hate my life. I'm gonna get myself a helluva lot of sake to drown myself in when I'm free. Kami knows I need it.

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A/N: I'm back, and I must apologize for the lack of updates lately, what with my studies and all...

Blightwalker, over and out!


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